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Frontispiece " Hoor Boys' Chances. 



WHAT SHALL I BE? 



.^ y^tg^SiSm r .,..^,, tnrff?Si^g!M»» .n^»-^>iiag?!^fan 




ALTE/nUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY 



POOR BOYS' 

CHANCES 



BY 



JOHN HABBERTON 

T^uthor of " Helen's Babies," "Trif and Trixy," etc. 



WITH NUMEROUS PORTRAITS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 




Copyright 1900 by Henry Altemus Company 



PHILADELPHIA 

MENRY ALTE/nUS CO/nPANY 




Library of Congress 
IvvU COPJES R-EttH'PD 

FEB 18 1901 

Copyright «ntry 

SECOND COPY 



^- I *^ ^^ 



CONTENTS. 

Introduction 11 

Benjamin Franklin . . . ; 13 

George Washington 30 

Alexander Hamilton 48 

Stephen Girard 66 

John Jacob Astor 81 

Eli Whitney 90 

Andrew Jackson 101 

Henry Clay 122 

Peter Cooper 133 

Horace Mann 145 

'^ Commodore" Vanderbilt 153 

Abraham Lincoln 164 

Alexander H. Stephens 182 

General Grant 194 

''Stonewall" Jackson 212 

George Peabody 222 

President Garfield 231 

Jay Gould 245 

''Buffalo" Bill 256 

"Wizard" Edison 268 



1 Poor Hoys 







:r;r?:/f-''-^'-^^ 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Front! spier p. 

The Boy's Dream 18 

Benjamin Franklin 15 

Benjamin Delivers Candles 10 

Benjamin Eeads While Eating 17 

Benjamin Hears His Contributions Discussed 19 

Benjamin Leaves Home 21 

In Keith's Library 21 

"The Cold Water Printer" 23 

Starting the Philadelphia Library 25 

Drafting the Declaration of Independence 27 

Franklin at the French Court 29 

George Washington 31 

Washington's Birthplace 33 

Washington's Mother Objects to His Going to Sea 35 

Washington Breaking a Colt 37 

Washington on His Mission to the West 39 

Braddock and His Young Aide-de-Carap 41 

Washington's First Interview with His Wife 43 

Washington Taking Command of the Army 45 

Washington at the Battle of Princeton 47 

Alexander Hamilton 49 

The Defeat at the Battle of Long Island 51 

First Meeting Between Washington and Hamilton .... 53 

Arrival of the French Fleet 55 

Hamilton in the Trenches at Yorktown 57 

Washington's Entry into Yorktown 59 

John Marshall 61 

Washington and Hamilton at Valley Forge 63 

Duel Between Hamilton and Burr 65 

Stephen Girard 67 

7 



8 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

British Officers Impressing American Seamen 69 

Girard's Residence in Pliiladelphia 70 

Girard's Musical Secretary 71 

Girard's Old Yellow Chaise 72 

Main Building, Girard College 73 

Drawing Room, Girard College 75 

Natural History Room, Girard College 76 

Bathing Pool, Girard College 77 

Girard College Cadet 79 

Soldiers' Monument. Girard College 80 

John Jacob Astor 83 

The *' Astor House" 87 

The "Astor Library" 89 

Eli Whitney 91 

Cotton Boll Nearly Ripe 93 

Cotton Boll Perfectly Ripe 94 

The Boll Shedding Its Cotton 95 

The Boll After Shedding Its Cotton 96 

Picking Cotton 97 

Ginning Cotton 99 

Hauling Cotton 100 

Andrew Jackson 103 

Birthplace of Jackson 104 

A Log Cabin School House 105 

"Sir, I am a Prisoner of War" 107 

"Andrew Walked Forty Miles" 109 

Aaron Burr 115 

The Battle of New Orleans 117 

Vanquished Chieftain in Jackson's Tent 119 

Jackson's Tomb at "The Hermitage" 121 

Henry Clay 123 

Birthplace of Henry Clay 125 

"The Mill Boy of the Slashes" 127 

Clay's Famous Speech in the Senate 129 

Residence of Henry Clay — "Ashland" 131 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 9 

Peter Cooper 135 

The First Railway Train 137 

The First Atlantic Cable 139 

The Second Atlantic Cable 140 

Laying a Cable at Sea 141 

Cooper Union, New York 143 

Horace Mann 147 

Antioch College 149 

Horace Mann's Monument 152 

Cornelius Vanderbilt 155 

**He was Successful with His Small Craft" 156 

A Ferry Boat, New York Harbor 157 

Village on the San Juan River 159 

The *'Merrimac" in Action 161 

''Commodore" Vanderbilt at Home .163 

Abraham Lincoln in 1865 165 

Birthplace of Lincoln 167 

Lincoln's Early Home • 169 

Lincoln Splitting Rails 173 

Lincoln's Law Office 175 

Lincoln's Residence at Springfield, Illinois 177 

Abraham Lincoln in 1858 179 

Lincoln and His Son ''Tad " 181 

Alexander H. Stephens 183 

Jefferson Davis 185 

A Southern School House 187 

The Confederacy Inaugurated 191 

The Confederate Capitol, Richmond, Va 192 

General Ulysses S. Grant 195 

Birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant 197 

"It was Hard, Dirty Work" 198 

"A Regular Teamster" 199 

"Hazing was then Common" , 201 

"He Made a Record as a Horseman" 203 

The Cannon in the Church Tower 205 



10 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Bombardiuent of Fort Sumter 207 

Grant's Attack on Fort Do nelson , 209 

General Grant in 1880 . . • 211 

Thomas J. Jackson 213 

Jackson at the Battle of Churubusco 215 

The Battle of Bull Run 219 

** Stonewall" Jackson's Monument, Richmond, Ya 221 

George Peabody 223 

Birthplace of George Peabody 225 

The Grinnell Expedition in the Ice 227 

Peabody Institute, Peabody, Mass .229 

James A. Garfield 233 

Birthplace of Garfield . . . . 235 

Garfield on the Towpath 237 

Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio 240 

Garfield as Rosecrans' Chief-of-Staff 241 

The Battle of Chickamauga 243 

Jay Gould 247 

Birthplace of Jay Gould 249 

Building the Union Pacific Railway 250 

Residence of Jay Gould's Father at Roxbury, N. Y 251 

First Sight of the Locomotive ... 252 

Store of Jay Gould's Father at Roxbury, N. Y 253 

Elevated Railway, New York 254 

William F. Cody, "Buffalo Bill" 257 

Cody as a *' Cow-Boy" , . 260 

A Post-Office on the Plains 261 

The King of the Herd 263 

Indian Attack on the Overland Mail 264 

The 'Deadwood Coach" 267 

Thomas A. Edison 269 

Edison Printing His Paper 273 

Edison's Incandescent Light 275 

Edison's First Phonograph 277 

Moving Picture Exhibition .... 278 



^\M.m 




A full list of poor boys who have become successful men 
would include the names of almost all prominent Ameri- 
cans of past and present days. There are several reasons 
for this ; one is that rich men's sons are few, in proportion 
to population ; another is that rich boys have so many op- 
portunities from which to choose that they seldom avail 
themselves of any. A far better reason, however, is that 
the boy who is poor feels the spur of necessity, so if he 
has proper respect for himself he seizes whatever chance 
is nearest at hand and makes the most of it. 

But lazy boys, cowardly boys, thoughtless boys and 
boys who are in haste to become rich are as apt as some 
men at complaining that nowadays there are no oppor- 
tunities, no "streaks of luck," no good chances, such as 
there used to be. It is true that a few — a very few, of the 
old-time chances are gone, but it is also true that for every 
one that has disappeared there are a hundred new ones. 

u 



12 INTRODUCTION. 

Indeed, the wonder is that the boys of two or three genera- 
tions ago found any special opportunities for bettering 
their condition, for manufactures were few, and there was 
little chance in them to get rich quickly ; there was none of 
the railroads, mines and scores of other new businesses 
which are now enriching many thousands of men and 
stimulating the minds of hundreds of thousands. 

How few and mean were the chances of boys of the 
last generation and of the two or three which preceded 
it may be learned from the following pages, in which are 
noted briefly the opportunities of a score of American boys 
who became famous in different departments of effort. 
Almost all of these chances that were of any service are 
within the reach of modern boys. What boys have done 
boys can do. 




BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 

Born January 7, 1706; died April 17, 1790. 

In the good old times when lucky chances were supposed 
to have abounded for poor boys, one of the most fortunate 
of Americans was Benjamin Franklin, for he was re- 
spected by every one who knew him and feared by every 
one whom he opposed ; he succeeded at almost every thing 
he undertook, he enjoyed life to his latest days, which were 
prolonged far beyond the customary three-score years and 
ten, and he never was out of money. Most men of prom- 
inence owe their success to proficiency in some one single 
line of endeavor, but Franklin knew so much, and about 
so many things that his most recent biographer calls him 
"The Many-Sided Franklin." No one, not even Washing- 
ton, was more useful than he to the patriot cause during 
the Revolutionary period, yet he retained the friendship of 

13 



14 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

the many Englishmen who had known him while he was 
the agent in England of the Pennsylvania Colony. In his 
old age he became the "social lion" of Paris, though he 
dressed plainly and was as simple and direct of manner 
as while he was at home. He was liked, respected and 
trusted by every member of the Continental Congress, 
though those worthies were so full of the jealousies of 
their respective colonies that they were suspicious of 
almost all their fellow members ; Franklin did more than 
any one but Washington to allay this suspicion and make 
a permanent union of the colonies possible. 

Yet this remarkably successful American was "born and 
bred in poverty and obscurity" (the words are his own, 
from his autobiography). He was the fifteenth child of 
his father, a maker of soap and candles in Boston, 
at a time when that city contained only a few thousand 
people and most of the inhabitants made their own soap 
and candles, so the elder Franklin's businesss was a poor 
one. As Benjamin once said that he could remember to 
have seen thirteen of his brothers and sisters at table at one 
time, no farther evidence of the family's poverty is neces- 
sary. 

Nevertheless the elder Franklin wished to make Benja- 
min (his tenth son), a minister, and to prepare the youth 
for college he sent him to the grammar school at the early 
age of eight years ; a grammar school, at that time, at- 
tempted to teach little but the elements of Latin and Greek, 
so a boy might pass through one successfully vvdthout 
knowing even the multiplication table. But the expense of 
the grammar school course became too great for the elder 
Franklin to meet, so Benjamin was removed to a lower 
school to learn reading and writing, these, with reading, 
being the only branches in which instruction was given. 
Even this elementary schooling stopped when young 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



16 




Benjamin Franklin. 

Franklin reached his tenth year, for the boy's hands were 
needed in the shop, to help earn the family living. 

It was a chance to learn a trade, but Benjamin did not 
like soap boiling and candle-making; he wished to go to 



16 



POOR BOYS- CHANCES. 



sea, where the greater business chances of the period ap- 
peared to be, though it is true that they were attended by 
great risks. His father objected to his becoming a sailor, 
so the boy gratified his nautical tastes to the best of his 
ability with small boats. Many years afterward he wrote 
that he handled them well, young though he was, "and was 
commonly allowed to govern, especially in any case of 
difficulty, and upon other occasions I was generally a 

leader among the boys." 
These few words fore- 
shadow his entire career, 
for whatever he did 
throughout life, from the 
first we knew of it, was 
well done, so although he 
was assuming or aggres- 
sive he was sure to find 
himself in a position of 
leadership among men. 

His dislike of the soap 
and candle business con- 
tinued ; so did his desire to 
go to sea, but his father, 
who seems to have been a 
to take him about to see 
men at work, hoping that some form of handicraft 
would engage the boy's fancy. The experiment did not suc- 
ceed to the father's liking, but young Franklin's eyes 
seemed to see as well as to look ; there is a great difiference 
in these two ways of using the eyes. In those occasional 
hours began the interest in the mechanic arts which Frank- 
lin always rrianifested afterward and which he often put 
to practical use. 

Young Franklin manifested early in life a fondness 
for reading, but the books he names in his autobiography 




Benjamin Delivers Candles, 
model parent, found time 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



17 



as having read 
before his twelfth 
year would not 
appeal to any 
small boy of the 
present day ; they 
were John Bun- 
yan's works, Bur- 
ton's "Historical 
Collections," De- 
foe's "Essays on 
Projects" and 
Mather's "Essays 
to Do Good." 
Perhaps . he had 
to choose between 
these and noth- 
ing, for it is cer- 
tain (and perhaps 
it was lucky for 
Benjamin) that 
novels and story-books were not to be had in Bos- 
ton in those days ; boys had never even heard of such 
means of killing time. 

Franklin's first real chance came when he was about 
t\\ elve years of age, but it was not at all to his liking. One 
of his adult brothers, who had been to England and learned 
tlie printer's trade, returned to Boston to begin business 
for himself, and Benjamin was apprenticed to him. The 
boy learned quickly to set type, but what pleased him more- 
was that the business made him acquainted with book-,' 
oilers' apprentices, some of whom lent him their employ-"*, 
^rs' books, to read over-night. It was thus he began his 
education, for he never went to school again. His reading ■ 
hours were few, for the working day was long in New ' 




Benjamin Reads While Eating. 



18 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

England in the early part of the last century, but he 
read far into the night, in order to finish a book and 
return it before the owner could miss it. 

While still a boy in his brother's shop there came 
to him a chance which many an older lover of literature 
would have hailed with joy. He had taken a fancy to 
poetry, which led to the making of verses. Noting this, 
his brother set him to writing ballads on tragic events of 
the day ; the brother printed them and sent Benjamin about 
the town to sell them, so the boy had the satisfaction, de- 
nied to many older poets, of knowing who really read his 
verse. "They were wretched stuff," Franklin wrote many 
years later, but they "sold wonderfully" ; evidently Boston 
had not yet become fastidious about poetry. What the 
nation might have suffered and lost had Franklin aban- 
doned himself to verse is dreadful to contemplate, in 
the light of later days ; fortimately for all of us the boy's 
father laughed at the ballads and told his son that verse- 
makers generally became beggars, so Benjamin was saved 
for nobler efforts and entirely through heeding his father's 
v/arning — a chance that occurs frequently in the lives of 
boys, though many of them have reasons of their own 
for not profiting by it. 

To a similar chance Franklin owed that command of 
language which made him far more effective at writing 
and speaking than most of the public men of his day. He 
had the common boyish belief, which the majority of 1)oys 
retain until they grow old and die, that mere disputation is 
argument. He quarrelled for months by letter, with an- 
other boy, over the advisability of educating women — boys 
seem as bad as men in selecting, for discussion, subjects of 
which they are utterly ignorant. Franklin's father saw 
some of the letters and suggested that his son's writing 
lacked method, clearness and grace. Nobodv enjoys that 
sort of criticism, but again Franklin heeded his father, and 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



10 




Benjamin Hears His Contributions Discussed. 

soon another great chance came in his way — one that is in 
reach of almost every American boy to-day, for it was 
merely an odd volume of Addison's "Spectator." Franklin 



20 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

immediately set himself to improving his style by studying 
that of Addison, and he could not have had a better model 
at that time; indeed, though modern aspirants to elegant 
English can study also Macaulay, Ruskin and Hawthorne, 
the boy who masters Addison's methods of expression will 
never lack listeners and readers if he really has any thing 
to say. But imagine, if you can, a modern 'prentice boy, 
only fifteen years of age, spending his spare hours over the 
pages of the old "Spectator," as Franklin did! He read 
other "heavy" books, too, of his own accord — Locke's 
''Human Understanding," and Xenophon's "Memorabilia 
of Socrates," and he also studied hard at arithmetic and 
grammar — two studies which most boys dodge whenever 
they can. Yet he was not a prig, nor a recluse, nor a book- 
worm ; on the contrary, he was a big, healthy boy, full of 
animal spirits and love of fun. 

Meanwhile his brother had begun the publication of a 
newspaper — a startling enterprise, for only three other 
papers had been started in America, and one of them had 
suspended publication. Benjamin immediately began to 
contribute by the indirect method of slipping his contribu- 
tions, unsigned, under the office door. When his brother 
finally identified the new writer he did not make him assist- 
ant editor and raise his pay ; on the contrary, he was dis • 
pleased, apparently fearing that success at writing would 
make the boy vain. Soon afterward, however, the editor- 
proprietor was sent to jail for a month for having printed 
something which displeased the local government. Then 
Benjamin had a chance indeed, for he, although only six- 
teen years of age, "ran the paper," and he did it so skilfully 
as to keep himself out of jail, though he also freed his 
mind regarding the government. Perhaps he was too 
smart — a not uncommon failing of editors, for when his 
brother was released the Massachusetts Assemblv ordered 



BENJAMIN FRANKT.IN. 



21 




Benjamin Leaves Home. 



that "James Franklin 
should no longer print the 
paper called the New Eng- 
land Courant." 

But the Franklins were 
not Yankees for nothing; 
James put up the name of 
Benjamin as the printer of 
the paper, and soon the boy 
found himself in a pecu- 
liar position ; nominally an 
editor and publisher, he 
was really apprentice and 
newsboy to his brother, 
who was also his master, 
and who frequently exer- 
cises the master's right, under the laws of the time, to 
give his apprentice a sound thrashing! 

Benjamin ended this anomalous state of affairs by 
leaving his brother, who 
retaliated by warning all 
other Boston printers not 
to employ the runaway ap- 
prentice. The boy made 
his way to New York but 
could get no work there, 
for the present metropolis 
was not much of a town a 
hundred and seventy-five 
years ago. He heard of a 
possible job in Philadel- 
phia, where he knew no 
one. He was but seven- 
teen years of age, Philadel- 
phia was a hundred miles 

o Poor Boys 




In Keith's Library. 



22 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

away, he had very httle money, there were no railway 
trains on which a boy could beg or steal a ride, and travel 
of any sort was risky for boys who could not give a 
straight account of themselves, for at that time many 
white men and boys, called indentured servants, were liter- 
ally bought and sold for specified terms of service ; man)- 
of them ran away from their masters, and the capturing of 
these, for the rewards offered, was quite a flourishing 
business. Yet Franklin started, and succeeded ; when he 
reached Philadelphia his cash had been reduced to a single 
dollar, but he soon found employment. 

This was the only chance for which he had been looking, 
but not long afterward a brilliant one appeared unexpect- 
edly, for Sir William Keith, the governor of the province, 
heard him mentioned as a clever young man and printer, 
called on him, invited him to his house, and finally offered 
to set him up in the printing business for himself, to send 
him to England to buy type and a press and to become 
acquainted with London printers and stationers, who pro- 
duced most of the books and paper sold in America. 

At eighteen years of age Franklin started for Lon- 
don, paying the passage-money from his own savings. The 
letters of introduction and the letter of credit promised 
by the governor did not reach him before he sailed, nor 
did they ever reach London, so the boy found himself three 
thousand miles from home, with but little money, and, 
worse still, with a good-natured but good-for-nothing 
companion who frequently borrowed but never repaid any 
thing. At that time Franklin's only gain from his seeming- 
great chance was his first knowledge of politicians' profes- 
sions and promises ; this knowledge proved of great value 
in later years, but no boy could be expected to rightly 
estimate such knowledge so far in advance. 

Still, he took to work Instead of to drink, though he 
found the latter to be the favorite diversion of Lon- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



23 



don printers. Indirectly, this drink-habit gave him a 
chance which he improved and of the results of which 
he was afterward quite proud. He was nicknamed the 
"cold-water printer," yet he could carry two "forms" 
of type, while the other men, who sought strength in 
beer and spirits, 
and thought they 
found it there, 
could carry but 
one. This differ- 
ence in strength 
caused great won- 
der ; Franklin at- 
tributed it to his 
non-drinking habit, 
and many of his 
brother workmen 
afterward followed 
his example with 
satisfactory results 
to their physiques 
and pockets. 

Before he came 
of age another 
great chance came 
in his way. A Phil- 
adelphian of Eng- 
lish birth and high 
character, who had crossed in the ship with him, pur- 
chased a stock of goods with which to begin business 
anew in Philadelphia, and he had been so impressed 
by Franklin's manners and sense that he sought him 
out, ofifered to take him back to Philadelphia as a clerk, 
and to promote him rapidly and in time establish him 
handsomely in business. 




The Cold Water Printer." 



24 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

The plan was greatly to Franklin's liking, partly be- 
cause he had left a sweetheart in Philadelphia. The 
goods with their owner and his new clerk, reached 
America safely, and for almost half a year Franklin 
was prosperous, but just as he came of age he and his 
employer fell dangerously ill ; the employer died, his 
executors ignored Franklin, and when the latter re- 
covered his health he found himself again out of occu- 
pation ; his sweetheart had already married another 
man. 

Such is the history of the chances of a poor boy who 
afterward became famous in many ways and never lacked 
money, friends nor honors. Apparently his chances were 
very small, except those that ended in misfortune ; the only 
ones that did much for him were two that were and are 
within reach of all other poor boys — the chance to work 
well at whatever he found to do with his hands, and the 
chance to improve his mind by study. Neither is attractive 
to boys in general, for they are horribly tiresome and slow, 
yet neither fails to tell in the long run. 

His knowledge of printing enabled him to start in 1779, 
when he was but twenty-three years of age, the ''Pennsyl- 
vania Gazette," which quickly became one of the most in- 
fluential papers in the colonies. Two years later his ap- 
preciation of what facilities for reading had done for 
him prompted him to start the Philadelphia Library, 
which became to thousands of poor young men a 
substitute for a high school. In 1782 he began the 
publication of "Poor Richard's Almanac" — a cheap 
annual pamphlet in which he printed so many pithy 
scraps of wisdom that the work remained popular for a 
quarter of a century and was translated into several Euro- 
pean languages. He also labored hard and persistently to 
improve the condition of the Philadelphia schools, believ- 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



25 



ing that the best possible start in Hfe was a fair edu- 
cation. 

By this time he had the means and time to study and 
read what he would, and he so greatly enjoyed the collect- 
ing and applying of information that he continued at it 
throughout his life ; he did not believe that any one could 
ever "finish his education." At the age of twenty-seven, 




Starting the Philadelphia Library. 

though then quite a busy man, he had begun the study of 
European languages, apparently for no particular purpose, 
though he found them useful in later ye ars. 

When thirty years of age he became clerk of the Penn- 
sylvania Assembly and soon afterward was appointed post- 
master, but his official duties and private occupations did 
not keep him from studying the general welfare of the 
community ; he was instrumental in improving the "watch'' 
or police system of Philadelphia and he organized the 



26 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

city's first system of extinguishing fires, which was the be- 
ginning of a fire department. A stove which he invented, 
on a plan still in use and which still bears his name, was 
the first means the people had of warming rooms in which 
fireplaces could not be built. 

In his day it was the fashion of men to retire from 
active business when they had earned a competence, so in 
his fiftieth year Franklin retired and devoted most of his 
time to scientific studies and experiments ; in one of the 
latter, sending up during a thunderstorm a kite with a 
silk string, he discovered that lightning was merely a dis- 
charge of electricity, whereupon he invented the lightning- 
rod. 

But public affairs continued to demand much of his 
time. In 1753 the British government appointed him 
deputy postmaster general of America. A year later, when 
war with the French and Indians was impending, he was 
a delegate to a colonial convention held at Albany, N. Y., 
where he offered a plan for a closer union of the colonies 
for defensive and other purposes ; it was too original to 
please the colonies and so democratic that the British gov- 
ernment disapproved of it, but he did not drop it from 
his mind, and about twenty years later, when the colonies 
were obliged to combine against Great Britain, he was , 
probably the only man in America who had already \ 
''thought it out/* ' j 

When the French and Indian War began it was only ' 
through Franklin's exertions and reputation that trans- 
portation facilities were obtained for Braddock's army. 
After Braddock's defeat he did so much toward organiz- 
ing a militia force that he received a military commission, 
but w^hen he was oflFered command of an expedition he 
resisted the temptation ; apparently he was the only high 
militia officer who ever displayed so much modesty and 
sense in time of war. 



BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 



*27 




t^^^ 






Drafting the Declaration of Independence. 

In the middle of the eighteenth century many Pennsyl- 
vanians objected earnestly to what they believed to be the 
unjust exactions of the ''proprietaries/' or owners of the 



28 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

grant that had been made William Penn long before, so 
they made Franklin their agent to demand redress from 
the'crown ; he went to England in 1757 and remained there 
five years, during which time he acted as agent for several 
other colonies. His many scientific papers and addresses 
had reached England and secured for him a warm wel- 
come from the learned class, and he improved the oppor- 
tunity to add to his acquirements, but he never neglected 
the interests that had been entrusted to him. In 1764 he 
went again to England for the Pennsylvania complainants 
against the proprietaries ; while there he earnestly opposed 
the stamp act, which had recently been passed, and princi- 
pally to his arguments, tact and earnestness the repeal of 
the act was due. Pennsylvania afterward found it advan- 
tageous to keep him in England as the business and politi- 
cal agent of the colony ; in a larger sense he was a repre- 
sentative of all the colonies, for his information was so 
large and his wits so keen that nothing escaped his atten- 
tion ; on the other hand. Englishmen of both parties, as 
well as high officers of the crown, consulted him contin- 
ually on colonial affairs. But George III was weak-minded 
and obstinate and his prime minister was his servant. In 
modern times prime ministers rule and kings are but fig- 
ure-heads ; had it been so in Franklin's time, there would 
have been no war with the colonies. 

Franklin returned to America a few days after the first 
battle of the Revolution. He was now in his seventieth 
year, yet his greatest services to his country were yet to 
come. He was made a member of the Continental Con- 
gress, which appointed him one of the committee of five 
which drafted the Declaration of Independence. Soon 
afterward he was sent to Europe to solicit recognition and 
aid for the infant republic; he did his work so well that 
France lent us millions in money and thousands of soldiers, 




Franklin at the French Court. 



29 



30 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

without which we could not have won our independence. 
He was also one of the commissioners who negotiated the 
treaty of peace with Great Britain. When he returned to 
Philadelphia, in 1785, though in his eightieth year, he was 
elected President (governor) of Pennsylvania and after- 
ward he w^as one of the most influential members of the 
Convention which framed the Constitution of the United 
States. When he died, at the age of eighty-four, his loss 
was bemoaned, not only in the colonies, but throughout 
the more civilized nations of Europe, where the story and 
results of his life were well known. To this day in Europe, 
even to the Eastern confines of Russia, there are poor 
but hopeful parents who tell their children the story of 
Franklin's life, as an illustration of what can be done 
by a poor boy who will make the most of his chances, 
even if thev be but few and small. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 
Born February 22, 1732; died December 14, 1799. 

It has been American custom to assume that all V^irgin- 
ians who became prominent in the Revolutionary period 
were aristocratic and wealthy, so it is still common belief 
that Washington was born rich and of distinguished an- 
cestry. It is true that "The Father of His Country" came 
of good English stock, but the family was reduced to 
poverty, by Cromwell's government, for loyalty to the 
royal family. If ownership of much land is a proof of 
wealth Washington's father was well off, but land was 
cheap in Virginia a hundred and seventy years ago, and 




George Washington. 



31 



32 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

many planters were in the condition now described by 
the expression "land-poor" ; that is, they had more land 
than their means would allow them to handle properly. 
Washington's father had been a sailor; so had his great 
grandfather, who was the first of the family to come to 
America; both sailors established themselves ashore, ap- 
parently with the money they had earned at sea, but 
their estates were not large, according to Virginia stand- 
ards, nor were their homes elegant. The subject of this 
sketch was not born in one of Virginia's spacious colonial 
mansions, but in a four-room house of as unpretentious 
exterior as any New England or Western cottage of sim- 
ilar size. 

After the death of her husband George's mother com- 
plained frequently, and for years, of poverty, and at one 
time she was named in the House of Burgesses (the colon- 
ial legislature) as a proper person to receive a pension. Her 
husband had been a man of character and energy ; he had 
been able to send George's two elder brothers to be edu- 
cated in England, in a school which was of a grade similar 
to a modern high school, but after he died his widow 
lacked the will, or the money, or both, to give her son 
George an education, though there were in Virginia some 
fair schools and a college. His schooling, such as it was, 
ended while he was yet a boy, for he felt obliged to earn 
his own living, which does not indicate that there was 
much money in the family. A few years later he inherited 
a portion of his father's estate and also the estate of his 
oldest brother, who had died, and he married a rich widow. 
Nevertheless, as already implied, George Washington was 
a poor boy and had to ''look after himself" when he was 
only fourteen. 

How little was his schooling may be inferred from the 
bad spelling and defective grammar which marked some 



GRORaE WASHINGTON. 



of his writings. He never lacked sound sense, nor the 
ability to express himself so that any one could understand 
hini, but he was so sensitive regarding his imperfect edu- 
cation that most of his public papers were revised, at his 
request, by men whose early opportunities had been better 
than his own ; the ideas were Washington's, but the gram- 
mar, and sometimes long passages of the papers, were in 
the words of Jefferson. Madison or Hamilton. Teachers 
had been so scarce in his 
early days that the first 
to instruct him was a con- 
vict-servant whom his 
father had purchased for 
the purpose ; it was an 
English custom, at the 
time, to punish petty crim- 
inals by sending them to 
the colonies to be sold as 
servants. Two or three 
years later he studied with 
a clergyman who liked 
him and doubtless did 
much toward the forma- 
tion of his character, but 
apparently the greater part 
of Washington's "book- 




Washington's Birthplace. 



learning" came from a popular English volume called 
"The Young Man's Companion," which oft"ered in- 
struction in many subjects, among them being arith- 
metic, navigation, legal forms, building, farming, me- 
chanics, letter-writing, "doctoring," and manners. 
Yet a boy may get a great lot of education from one 
book, if he masters the contents and thinks about them; 
a wise man once wrote "Beware of the man of one 



34 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

book," by which he meant wlioever really masters a 
book has a strong mind. 

When Washington began to look for an occupation he 
wished to go to sea. His brother secured for him an ap- 
pointment as midshipman in the British navy, but this 
glorious chance, as any boy in the colonies would have 
thought it, was ruined by his mother's determined objec- 
tion. No boy can doubt that Washington took his disap- 
pointment very hard, or that if he had become a British 
naval officer he would never have led the American army 
to victory, all of which is a reminder that the best thing 
about some chances, apparently glorious ones, is the losing 
of them. 

After abandoning his hope of going to sea he turned 
his attention to surveying, which according to Jefiferson, 
who knew him, was his principal study after his early 
school days. Apparently it puzzled him a long time, for 
he was not a quick-witted youth, but he mastered it, and 
at the early age of seventeen he was appointed surveyor 
of one of the Virginia counties. But he had learned 
much besides surveying. Young though he was, and 
-quite as fond of hunting, fishing, riding, swimming and 
other sports as country boys in general, he lost no op- 
portunities of listening to the conversation of his elders. 
It is easy to listen, and easier to forget whatever one 
may hear, but Washington seems to have acquired the 
thinking habit at an early age, as well as a fondness for 
listening only to men who had something to say, which 
is not the easiest kind of listening; nevertheless, the 
two qualities enabled him to learn much from men, who 
are admirable substitutes for books when the latter 
can not be had. Besides, no matter how many books 
a boy may absorb, he must study men also before he 
can expect to be successful and prominent. 




Washingtoo's Mother Objects to His (iloing to Sea, 



30 



30 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

How much can be learned by studying the right kind 
of men and comprehending them is beyond human power 
to estimate. In Washington's time many young Americans 
attended cohege, had access to large libraries and after- 
ward entered the learned professions or became men of 
aftairs; scores of them aft'^rward met one another in the 
first Continental Congress, of which John Adams said 
"Every one in it is a great man," yet Patrick Henry said 
of the same body "If you speak of solid information and 
sound judgment, Colonel Washington is unquestionably 
the greatest man on the lloor," — though he knew less of 
books than almost any other member. 

The surveyorship of a county consisting principally of 
forests would not appear to be much of a chance, ex- 
cept to get cut of sight of civilization and learn a lot of 
woodcraft, which was a common accomplishment in old 
Virginia days. Yet it gave Washington an opportunity to 
become acquainted with the Indians ; he did not improve it 
in the manner most approved by later generations of young 
Americans, for apparently he never killed an Indian, nor 
ever tried to. On the contrary, ne treated the redskins so 
well that he earned their confidence, and was enabled to 
study their ways. He did not imagine what great service 
the knowledge gained would be to him and his country in 
later years, so it would not have been strange had he asked 
himself, regarding study of the Indians, "What the use?'' 
or had he said to himself "There's nothing in it for me," 
— two expressions often used about information that is 
within reach yet can not be put at once to any profitable 
or amusing use. These expressions are not peculiar to 
boys ; not more than one man in a hundred learns more 
than he must, and by a strange coincidence not more than 
one man in a hundred ever rises above the common 
level, thougli it is hard for any man to ''pick up" and 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



37 



keep any bit of information which will not prove use- 
ful to him at some later day, and generally in an un- 
expected manner. 

To display good manners does not appear, to the average 
bey, to offer a chance to advance in the world, vet in "The 
Young Man's Instructor," already mentioned, Washington 
found some ''Rules of Civility" which impressed him so 




\^_;.; 



Washington Breaking a Colt. 

deeply that he copied them and retained them for future 
reference. He also practiced them persistently ; men are as 
susceptible to that sort of thing as women, though they 
pretend they are not, so, largely through his manners, 
Washington became known as "a. fine young fellow" — an 
expression so seldom applied to boys in their 'teens that 
scarcely a man of to-day, when boys abound, knows of 

O Poor Boys 



38 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

half a dozen regarding whom such language can be used. 
Access to the society of his elders, which Washington 
gained through his manners, was not used merely for in- 
terchange of civilities ; the youth wished not only to be 
tolerated by men but to be treated as one of them, so he 
set himself to acquiring tact, which, in brief, is the arr 
of remaining abreast of the best and in the confidence 
of all. 

Out of Washington's few chances and the use he had 
made of them it came to pass that when there arose a 
prospect of war with the French and Indians, Washington, 
only nineteen years of age, was appointed adjutant-gen- 
eral, with the rank of major, of one of the four districts 
into which Virginia was quickly divided for military pur- 
poses. This looked like a great chance, and so it was — a 
chance to work very hard and to keep a bull-dog grip on 
his temper, which was quite quick and hot. All this he did, 
yet by the time he got his department in good working 
order the war-cloud drifted away, leaving him no longer 
a soldier, but merely a surveyor out of a job. 

His next unusual chance was to accompany a sick 
brother to the West Indies ; all he got out of this, at the 
time, beside satisfaction at being able to do something for 
his brother, was a sea-voyage and an attack of small-pox — 
and George was very sensitive about his personal appear- 
ance. Yet to his faithfulness to the invalid he probably 
owed his subsequent position as executor of the estate of 
his brother, wdio had married rich ; the executorship com- 
pelled him to acquire the methodical business habits for 
which he was afterward distinguished, and which enabled 
him to care properly for the three estates which became 
his own in quick succession afterward. 

Washington was barely of age and in possession of 
many acres wdiich required close attention when there came 



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Washington on His Mission to the West. 



40 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

to him another unusual chance, though it promised httlo 
but hard travel and possible death, tor the governor of 
Virginia wished to send a warning and demand to a 
French militar}- commander about five hundred miles to 
the westward, on territory claimed both by France and 
the Mrginia colony. Most of the journey would have to be 
made in winter, through a country without roads, ferries, 
hotels or even backwoods settlements, and the forests con- 
tained many Indians whom the French had prejudiced 
against the Virginians. The messenger was to have an 
armed guard, but should fighting occur no mere guard 
could be expected to prevail against tribes of Indians or a 
garrison of trained French soldiers. Yet Washington made 
the trip successfully, though it was longer, rougher and 
more dangerous than any that could be made in the far 
west to-day ; his knowledge of Indian character enabled 
him to avoid encounters with the savages and his tact 
prevented any exchange of shots with the French. 

A boy's chances do not seem to him to be good for much 
unless they point to success at something which is fairly 
in sight, yet none of young Washington's opportunities 
gave the faintest indication of the use that was to be 
made of it. The most for which he had any reason to hope, 
before he came of age, was to come into possession of 
some of his father's land and to be a planter of the more 
modest class — the class that had to think hard and pay 
close attention to business if they would make ends m.eet. 
A planter of Washington's day had to know a little of 
e\ery thing and superintend most of the work on his es- 
tate ; this work included milling, blacksmithing, harness- 
making, the manufacture and repairing of tools, etc., for 
skilled labor was scarce and the negro slaves had no incen- 
tive to mechanical dexterity. 

It was impossible that any of Washington's chances 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



41 



could foreshadow the command of an army and the ruling 
of a nation, for rebelHon against Great Britain had not 
been thought of when he was young nor had ''The United 
States" begun to exist, even in the most prophetic imagina- 
tion. Indeed, every thing at which Washington was to 
become prominent had yet to come into being. When finally 




Braddock and His Young Aide-de-camp. 



they came — the command of the army, the chairmanship 
of the Constitutional Convention, the presidency of the 
nation — great chances all, they were open to any aspirant 
who was equal to them, yet scores of men who had been 
blessed with great opportunities and wealth in their youth 
were compelled to make way for the still imperfectly edu- 
cated Virginian whose boyhood's chances had been few 



42 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

and small but who had done his best with each and all 
ot them, allowing none to escape unused merely because 
he saw no present gain in it. 

Yet the great results of his small chances were long 
in coming. It is very evident that he inclined strongly 
to a military career, nor can this be wondered at, for 
War was then thought the most honorable of the pro- 
fessions. His brother Lawrence had commanded a 
detachment of colonial troops which accompanied the 
British troops and fleet to Cartagena when George was 
a small boy, so there were military traditions and 
stories in the family. Trouble with the French on the 
w^estern border of Virginia continued after Washington 
came of age, and when the young man was but twenty- 
tw^o he became lieutenant-colonel of a Virginia force 
sent against the French. By. the death of his colonel, 
Washington found himself commander of the expedi- 
tion, with another long march before him and assur- 
ance of some fighting; he found the French too strong 
for him and he was obliged to surrender his position 
'and retreat, so his chance seemed to have been of no 
use. A year later he became aide-de-camp to General 
Braddock, who was sent with some British regulars 
and Virginians against the French. By this time the 
young officer knew enough to criticise the plans of his 
superiors, but Braddock was obstinate as w^ell as 
ignorant of Indian tactics, so Washington, though he 
fought hard and well and saved the Virpinians from 
the general slaughter suffered by the British, had again 
to feel the humiliation of defeat. Soon after the re- 
mains of Braddock's army w^ere withdrawn to the sea- 
board Washington w^as made commander of all the 
troops of Virginia's western border, but the war ended 
without giving him a chance to distinguish himself. 













Washington's First Interview with His Wife. 



44 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Apparently this was the end of his military career, 
for he returned to Mount Vernon and for many years 
was a peaceful planter, though not an indolent one, for 
he was his own superintendent, instead of leaving his 
overseer in charge of every thing but the money, and 
he personally tested many new seeds, implements, 
methods of planting, etc. He frequently served in the 
colony's legislature, wdiere he became acquainted with 
the prominent men of the colony, and he planned and 
personally directed the greatest public enterprise of 
Virginia — the Dismal Swamp Improvement Company. 

Meanwhile he was not unknown in the other colonies 
for he had visited Philadelphia, New York and Boston 
while Colonel of the Virginia troops, and those cities 
were so small at the time that he met all of their more 
prominent people. Consequently his name was familiar 
when he appeared as one of Virginia's delegates to the 
first Continental Congress (1774). At that time he was 
as true and affectionate a royalist as any member of the 
British government, but he was as earnest as any of his 
associates in protesting against British treatment of the 
colonies. He had already offered, in case of need, to 
raise and at his own expense equip a thousand Virgin- 
ians and lead them to the assistance of the Massachu- 
setts militia who were prepared to resist General Gage 
at Boston, so the New England members of Congress, 
who soon found him to be what Patrick Henry called 
him, ''unquestionably the greatest man on the floor," 
were prepared to consider him as a soldier also. When 
the Congress of 1775 heard of the battle of Lexington 
it had already adopted, as an army, the troops raised 
by various colonies, but a commander-in-chief was 
still necessary. There were able soldiers from whom to 
choose — veterans of wars with the French and Indians ; 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



45 




Washington Taking Command of the Army. 

there were Generals Putnam, Schuyler, Green, Mont- 
gomery and others, but each lacked some desirable 
quality which Washington possessed, so one day the 



46 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Mount Vernon planter was informed that he was the 
delegates' unanimous choice for commander of the 
army. 

In war he had more defeats than victories, for the 
odds of men and material were greatly against him 
until the last year of actual fighting, when he defeated 
Cornwallis at Yorktown. But fighting was not his 
sole duty; he had to hold the army together by allay- 
ing dissensions, preventing mutinies and coaxing men, 
supplies and money from the colonists after the first 
outburst of enthusiasm had subsided and even Con- 
gress and governors became appalled at the magnitude 
of the task that had been undertaken. Ability and 
willingness to fight are but a small part of a com- 
mander's equipment, so great soldiers of later genera- 
tions have marvelled at the measure of success attained 
by Washington despite an almost endless train of difii- 
culties and discouragements. 

When peace was declared Washington resigned his 
commission, retired to his plantation and soon imagined 
himself forgotten. When, however, the wiser men of 
the nation, which then was but a loose confederation 
of states, became convinced of the need of a closer and 
stronger union, and delegates from the different states 
assembled to draft a constitution and organize a cen- 
tral government. Delegate Washington was made 
president of the convention and he was afterward 
elected President of the United States. Tlie eight years 
of his presidency were full of doubts, suspicions, fears, 
jealousies and blunders; there were foes without and 
foes within, and it is now universally admitted that 
Washington was the only man in the land who pos- 
sessed the necessary combination of courage, prudence, 
moderation, tact, character and personal influence to 



GEORGE WASHINGTON. 



47 



withstand them. No one, nor any political combina- 
tion, could prevail against him ; Jefferson, who greatly 




Washington at the Battle of Princeton. 

admired him yet differed with him on almost all ques- 
tions of public policy, wrote in the last of Washington's 
eight years in the presidential chair "One man out- 



48 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

weighs them all (the members of Congress) in influ- 
ence over the people, who have supported his j adgment 
against their own and that of their representatives. 
Republicanism nmst lie on its oars, resign the vessel 
to its pilot and themselves to what course he thinks 
best for them." 

At the end of his second term as president he return- 
ed to his home, but his influence continued to be felt 
and he remained the actual leader of his party. In the 
last year of his life, when w^ar with France seemed 
unavoidable, he was again appointed commander-in- 
chief, with permission to select his generals, but before 
the war-cloud passed away he died, lamented by his 
political enemies as well as by his friends. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 
Born January iith, 1757; Died July i2th, 1804. 

Of the thousands of mere boys who took part in the 
American Revolution, none achieved so many suc- 
cesses in the time of conflict or so many honors after- 
ward as Alexander Hamilton. 

Hamilton was only seventeen years of age when his 
political writings were attributed to the wisest men 
of New York ; he was only nineteen when he became 
the most trusted member of Washington's staff. At 
twenty-seven he was a congressman, at thirty-two 
Secretary of the Treasury, and at forty-two the com- 
mander-in-chief of the United States army. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



49 



As "The boy is father of the man" — an old saying 
so true that it will bear frequent repetition, he must 



^^ 



^^J^^^ J "^j;j<i^ ^i^i^j^'V^'^>Vi^^^.^ ^ 



=V^,/iv:r;^^^> '^^.;^^: 



-^^^ 













Alexander Hamilton. 



have had some extraordinary chances in his youthful 
days. What were they ? 



50 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

The first was of a kind for which no boy is longing, 
for his father became hopelessly poor when Alexander 
was but ten years of age, so, as his mother had died, 
the boy was obliged to earn his own livelihood. He 
was not in a big city, where most of the great chances 
for boys are supposed to be, but in a little island in the 
West Indies. His only chance was to become "store- 
boy" for one of the merchants of the island. He was 
short and slight for his years, and he greatly disliked 
the kind of work he was obliged to do, for his tastes 
inclined toward reading and study, but he worked so 
hard, cheerfully and intelligently that he won the re- 
gard of his employer, who taught him to keep accounts. 
He became so proficient at this and at pleasing the 
customers that when he was but fourteen he was left 
in charge of the business while his employer made a 
voyage to the American colonies — a trip that consumed 
a long time in the days of sailing vessels. Whenever 
Hamilton had any leisure moments in the store he 
read or studied, and his manifest desire to learn gained 
him the friendship and advice of a clergyman, who lent 
him many books. 

His second chance, also, came through misfortune, 
for a terrible storm devastated the island and promised 
dismal times for the storekeepers and all who were de- 
pendent upon them. Hamilton wrote a description of 
the storm's efifects and sent it to a newspaper in a 
neighboring island. Any one can "send a piece to the 
paper," but whether it will get into type depends upon 
its matter and manner. Hamilton's article was printed, 
anonymously, and it was so well written that many 
people asked who wrote it; when they learned that the 
author was a little store-boy on the island of Nevis 
some men of means agreed with one another that so 
promising a youth deserved an education, so they sub- 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



r>l 



scribed money to send him to college in the American 
colonies. 

A course at college is a great chance, yet hundreds 



















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^^ 




.-...aaHli^^^ 


^T^jf* •^jf^ J* '.^yjj|js''TH^^»| 



The Defeat at the Battle of Long Island. 

of thousands of boys have gone through college with- 
out amounting to anything afterward. But Hamilton 



52 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

made the most of it; he prepared himself in so short 
a time that the principle of the preparatory school could 
scarcely believe his own eyes and ears. 

Some boys who make brilliant beginnings soon weary 
of hard study, but Hamilton determined to work hard 
until he had graduated, for wdien he applied for admis- 
sion to Princeton College he asked permission to pass to 
higher classes as rapidly as he could prove his fitness 
to enter them. A request so unheard-of had to be de- 
nied, so the boy went to New York and entered King's 
College (now Columbia). What his instructors thought 
of him is not known, but in his second year he gave an 
astonishing indication of his intellectual qualities. That 
was the year of the first Continental Congress. Ameri- 
cans who were loyal to the British government — and 
among them were many of the best and wisest men in 
the colonies, were horrified at so revolutionary a pro- 
ceeding as the assembling of the dissatisfied in a de- 
liberative body of their own choosing, so some of the 
royalists who had keen pens rushed at once into print 
to express their disapprobation. Some of the patriots 
replied ; there were no daily newspapers in which to 
air political opinions, the weeklies were small sheets 
and the disputants had much to say, so their arguments 
were printed in pamphlet form. At a great mass-meet- 
ing in New York, then a city of but a few thousand in- 
habitants, the throng was astonished to see Alexander 
Hamilton, an undersized youth of seventeen, appear on 
the platform and deliver an intelligent, methodical, 
forceful address in favor of the colonial cause. Soon 
afterwards he took part in the battle of words by issu- 
ing, anonymously, a pamphlet entitled "Vindication 
of the Congress." It provoked replies, whereupon 
Hamilton issued a second and longer pamphlet. Both 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



53 




First Meeting Between Washington and Hamilton, 



were so ably written that all readers wondered who 
:onld be the author ; President Cooper of King's Col- 
:eg:e, himself an able writer and a strong royalist, de- 

<1 Poor lioyt 



54 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

clared that they could have been written only by John 
Jay, who was probably the ablest of New York's public 
men. What the worthy president said when he learned 
that the pamphlets were from the pen of one of his own 
students has not come down to us ; perhaps he said 
nothing, for some surprises are too great for utterance. 
The general effect of the pamphlets was to make the 
West India bo}^ a man among men, but this success 
did not turn Hamilton's head or make him neglect his 
studies under the impression that, as he was already 
as smart as men in general, he had learned enough. 

As soon as the colonists began to think of armed 
resistance Hamilton joined a company of men who 
were drilling as soldiers. But he did not stop when 
he had learned to carry and use a musket and know 
his place in the ranks ; he studied tactics also, and when 
the call to arms was sounded he passed a military 
examination, was appointed captain of artillery, and 
recruited a company. How well he conducted himself 
may be inferred from the fact that after the defeat of 
the patriot army in the battle of Long Island it was 
Hamilton's battery that was selected to cover the 
retreat to New York. His ability attracted the atten- 
tion of General Green, who, after Washington, was the 
ablest officer of the army, and Green mentioned him 
favorably to the commander-in-chief. 

A few days later Washington, while riding through 
the camp in New York, saw a young officer superin- 
tending the construction of some fortifications; the 
general liked the appearance of the works and of the 
boyish-looking officer ; he engaged him in conversation, 
and invited him to his tent ; the result Avas that Hamil- 
ton, aged only nineteen years, became aide-de-camp 
and confidential secretary to Washington, with the 
rank of lieutenant-colonel. 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 55 

This was indeed a great chance, but one in which 
many brilliant men would have failed, for the duties 
were many and exacting, and the man who discharged 
them was expected to be a fluent talker yet able to hold 
his tongue regarding much that he knew, and also to 
keep his temper when several things needed to be done 
at once by a man who had but one pair of hands. Yet 
Hamilton filled the place so entirely to the satisfaction 




Arrival of the French Fleet. 

of his chief that Washington, a remarkably able judge 
of human nature, became very fond of him and never 
had cause to lessen his regard. 

Within a few months Hamilton was charged with 
the most important private mission that Washing- 
ton ever entrusted to any one in the course of the war. 
General Gates, having defeated Burgoyne at Saratoga 
— the first great American victory of the war, Avas so 



56 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

puffed up that he was impatient of control and aspired 
to the command of the army. Washington needed 
some of Gates' troops, and sent Hamilton to ask for 
them, but Gates objected to losing them; he wished to 
plan farther campaigning for himself. 

This was not the worst of the situation. When Ham- 
ilton, a stripling twenty years of age, reached Saratoga, 
Gates' army was the centre of an organized military 
opposition to Washington. It was really a conspiracy ; 
in any strong nation it would have been treated ac- 
cordingly, and some generals would have lost their 
commissions and perhaps their heads, but the United 
States, as a nation, were so wxak that they were held 
together only by hope of independence and fear of the 
mother country ; each state had military pets who in 
turn had political partisans ; sectional feeling was 
strong, and could not safely be defied, so Washington 
was often obliged to persuade where a general should 
have had power to command. Besides, the colonists 
were still ignorant of war on a large scale ; they could 
judge generals only by their successes, of which Wash- 
ington had achieved none in the field. Hamilton's task, 
therefore, required vmwearving courage, observation, 
tact and patience, yet he made himself equal to it, and 
was heartily praised by his chief for what he did. From 
that time forth he was treated as one of the most in- 
fluential ofiicers of the army ; he took part in all the 
military councils at headquarters and was consulted 
about all the movements of the armies. 

He was also sent to the Eastern states, as Washing- 
ton's representative, to meet Count d'Estaing, com- 
mander of the army sent over by France to aid the 
Americans. Had this duty been a mere military formal- 
ity an older officer would have been selected, but the 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



57 



requirements of the case were peculiar. One was that 
the commander-in-chief's representative should be 
expert in politeness and in the French language, for 
d'Estaing was a courtly gentleman as well as a French 
soldier. It was also necessary to impart to him in 
confidence and intelligently all of Washington's mili- 
tary plans and hopes, and to disclose gradually, so 
that d'Estaing should not be shocked and discouraged 
when he appeared in the American camps, the many 



^-— > 



r 



"^ o-J 



'i>/ y£ 




Hamilton in the Trenches at Yorktown. 



deficiencies of our army, which was so deplorably lack- 
ing in arms, 'ammunition, clothing and discipline that 
to a foreign soldier it would have appeared a mere 
rabble. Hamilton, though still an "infant" in the eye 
of the law, was the only American officer who was 
equal to this delicate and important task, which he 
discharged so well, while not neglecting any of the 
courtesy due to allies so cultivated and punctillious, 



58 POOR BOYS" CHANCES. 

that d'Estaing and his officers became very fond of the 
little lieutenant-colonel, who also won the friendship 
and affection of Lafayette and became the only "go- 
between" and harmonizer of the French and American 
officers. 

Yet all the while he felt that he was not "having 
his chance." Any other young officer would have 
thought the position of aide and confidential secretary 
to the commander-in-chief the best in sight, for it 
assured him consideration from every one in the army 
and it also allowed him to know the truth about every 
thing that was going on — a kind of knowledge that is 
denied in armies to many officers of high rank. But 
Hamilton longed to be a fighting soldier — to train men, 
lead them, and win promotion in battle. Opportunity 
to do all this, apparently, came to him wdien an unjust 
reproof from Washington caused him to resign his staff 
appointment. Being assured of Washington's con- 
tinued regard he asked for field service, but it was im- 
possible to grant his request without displacing other 
men and creating jealousies wdiich would have had a 
bad effect upon the service ; Hamilton saw this for him- 
self, though probably not until he had suffered intense- 
ly through disappointment, but instead of sulking, and 
retiring from service, and avenging himself by criti- 
cising the blunders of every one from the head of the 
army downward, as any clever soldier in any army can 
do in time of war, he "hung about" a-nd took such 
chances as came in his way. Finally he found a fight- 
ing chance at Yorktown and he improved it superbly, 
but as this was the last great engagement of the war 
he did not gain the coveted promotion. 

A boy — or a man — never knows when his apparent 
lost chances are going to reappear and pay heavy inter- 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



59 



est on all the years in which they seem to have been 
buried. Almost twenty years after the Revolution, 
when war with France seemed inevitable, and the 
soldiers of the old army were carefully considered by 
Washington and by Congress, Hamilton, by request 
of Washington and with the approval of old generals 
who had known him only as a young aide-de-camp and 
a remarkably clever fellow and competent soldier, be- 



y/^^^ 




Washington's Entrj' into Yorktown. 

came the ranking major-general of the forces to be raised, 
and after Washington's death the commander-in- 
chief of the new army, which he organized with a de- 
gree of speed and ability that astonished and delighted 
all men who knew the difficulties of the task. The war 
was averted, but Hamilton had a glorious time, for 
gray-haired generals who had been highly esteemed by 
Washington were glad to serve under him, and he got 



60 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

all the glory of high command without having been 
obliged to sacrifice a single human life, which in itself 
gave him extreme satisfaction, for the more truly great 
a soldier, the less he likes to have any one killed. 

While still a young staff officer Hamilton had a 
chance which many self-respecting young men of the 
time would have accepted without hesitation — the 
chance to be supported by a rich father-in-law. He 
married a daughter of General Schuyler, who was an 
able soldier, a gentleman in every sense of the word 
and also a rich man. Schuyler was delighted to receive 
Hamilton as a son-in-law ; his letter in reply to Ham- 
ilton's request for the young woman's hand was as 
cordial and full of affectionate praise as any suitor 
could hope to receive. It was the custom of the day 
for poor men marrying into rich families to live on 
their wives' dowries, but at the time of marriage and 
afterward Hamilton declined Schuyler's offers of 
financial assistance. The end of the war found him 
poor, but he studied law so industriously that in four 
months he was admitted to practice. He had the 
chance to become a rich lawyer and to be forgotten 
soon after death, as rich lawyers usually are, but the 
nation made many demands upon his time and kept him 
poor; even his salary while he was Secretary of the 
Treasury was so small that he, while handling the 
government's money, was sometimes obliged to bor- 
row a few dollars to provide necessities for his family. 
His political enemies professed to doubt his honesty, 
for a public treasury offers great opportunities to a 
poor man, but his successors in office found no irregu- 
larities — nothing to criticise, but everything to admi-re. 
It is worthy of remark, in passing, that Hamilton's 
system of treasury accounting, which is still in opera- 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



61 



tion, no one having been able to improve it, was the 
outcome of his mastery of bookkeeping when he was a 
store-boy in the West Indies; it is thus that boys' 
chances, seeming small yet not neglected, "come in 
handy" in later years and in most unexpected ways. 

This sketch must not close without reference to one 
of Hamilton's qualities to which our country owes more 
than can ever be estimated. It was cheerfulness in the 
face of adversity. 
Soldiers, as a class, 
are the most persist- 
ent grumblers in the 
world, unless, per- 
haps, sailors exceed 
them a little. But 
the soldiers of Wash- 
ington's army had 
abundant provoca- 
tion to complaint and 
low spirits. They 
were badly fed, badly 
paid and badly 
clothed. The officers 
seldom fared better 
than their men, for 
continental currency 
was the meanest 
money in the world: 
there were times 
when an officer's pay for a month would not purchase 
a pair of shoes. A Virginia officer (John Marshall, 
afterward Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States) was one day summoned to Washing- 




John Marshall. 



62 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

ton's tent; he was obliged to borrow portions of the 
clothing of three brother officers in order to make a 
presentable appearance ; meanwhile the owners of 
these articles, were obliged to wrap themselves in 
blankets to keep warm until Marshall's return. 

There was much besides poverty to depress the 
army. Delays of many kinds were unavoidable, the 
people were lukewarm, after the first flash of enthusi- 
asm flickered out. Congress was slow and uncertain, 
while at the back of the enemy stood the richest and 
strongest nation on earth. It was but natural, in such 
circumstances, that ofiicers and men should often be 
despondent and that Washington sometimes suffered 
long seasons of gloom. Yet Hamilton, a small, feeble 
youth, often sick, always overworked, Avas habitually 
cheerful and lifted up the hearts of every one around 
him. He was not of the "happy-go-luck" type ; any 
tramp can be that, but he was always ready to give 
reasons for his cheerfulness. Natural disposition can 
not account for such a record ; only persistent effort, 
and the habit of looking for signs of hope and making 
the most of them, can explain it. 

Poor, motherless, with a father who could do noth- 
ing for him, store-boy on an island two thousand miles 
from anywhere, afterward practically a charity student 
in a city in which he had not a single relative, Hamil- 
ton's chances in boyhood were few and most of them 
were humiliating, yet no other American boy of his 
period won so brilliant and honorable a reputation. 

Almost immediately after being admitted to the bar 
he was -elected to Congress, where he quickly became 
prominent, though some of his associates had been in 
Congress ever since Hamilton, a boy of seventeen, 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



wrote his "Vindication of the Congress." He was a 
delegate from New York to the Annapolis Convention 
of 1786, which issued the call for the convention of the 




Washington and Hamilton at Valley Forge. 

following year, to frame the Constitution of the United 
States. He was a member of the last named conven- 
tion also, and although the Constitution itself did not 



64 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

provide for as strong a form of government as he 
thought necessary, no man but Washington did more 
than lie to familiarize the people with it and to urge its 
adoption by the states. The French Revolution was 
in progress at that time, and the theories of some of 
its leaders took strong hold of many able and patriotic 
Americans, making them doubt the necessity of a 
strong government ; the bloody excesses of the French 
leaders had not begun. In addition to this influence, 
there was much disinclination in the states to dele- 
gate any of their powers to a central government, so a 
series of about eighty papers appeared in a New York 
newspaper, for the purpose of explaining the constitu- 
tion and disarming opposition to it ; of these papers, 
which afterward were collected under the title "The 
Federalist," more than one-half were written by Ham- 
ilton. 

Immediately after the inauguration of the new gov- 
ernment, Washington appointed Hamilton Secretary 
of the Treasury, an office which he held for six years, 
at a salary amounting to about one-fourth as much as 
lawyers of his prominence were earning. He was the 
ablest and most persistent of the few advocates of the 
establishment of banks — a class of institutions to which 
the majority of the people and politicians were violent- 
ly opposed, though experience has abundantly proved 
Hamilton's wisdom. When Washington was again 
made commander-in-chief of the army, in 1798, in the 
general expectation of war with France, he appointed 
Hamilton his ranking maior-o^eneral and as Washing- 
ton died soon afterward Hamilton, as already ex- 
plained, became commander-in-chief and organized the 
new army. 

In 1804 came his last great chance. It was to refuse 



ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 



65 



to tii^hl a duel with Aaron Burr; he neglected it, and 
by so doing he lost his life — a misfortune by which the 




Duel Between Hamilton and Burr. 

entire nation suffered, for none of his contemporaries 
equalled him in defending and expounding the Con- 
stitution. 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 
Born May 24TH, 1750; Died Decemkkk 26th, 1831. 

Soon after the United States declared war against 
Great Britain in 1812 a large sum of money was needed 
to arm and equip troops and ships, so the American 
government asked for a loan of live million dollars. The 
people were poor, business was dull, for the war had 
discouraged trade with foreign countries ; many Ameri- 
cans teared the result of going to w^ar with the richest 
nation of Europe ; should Great Britain be the victor, 
the loan might not be repaid in full, or until after many 
years. For these reasons only twenty thousand dollars 
of the loan were subscribed in several weeks and the 
government became almost desperate in its poverty. 
One day Stephen Girard, a Philadelphia banker, offered 
the remainder of the desired five millions. His offer 
was gladly accepted and with the money thus obtained 
the war was continued to a satisfactory end. Without 
Girard's assistance the United States would have been 
obliged to retire from the contest ; the purpose of the 
war, which was to force Great Britain to respect the 
personal rights of seamen under the American flag, 
would not have been accomplished ; the American re- 
public would have been humiliated and Great Britain 
would have remained what she claimed literally to be, 
the ruler of the seas. 

Stephen Girard, who lent the nation five million 
dollars — the largest loan ever made at one time to the 
United States by a single individual until after the Civil 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 



67 




Stephen Girard.— From an old painting. 

War, began his business life by going to sea in the 
meanest capacity aboard ship — that of cabin-boy. It 
was his only chance. He was born in France, and, as 



68 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

was the case with another poor boy (John Jacob Astor) 
who afterward became a great American millionaire, 
his home life was made miserable by an unsympathetic 
step-mother. He had an affliction which affected his 
disposition unpleasantly, for when only eight years of 
age he lost one of his eyes — an infirmity for which he 
•was taunted by other boys. 

At the age of fourteen he ran away from home and 
went to sea. A sea-faring life did not promise a bril- 
liant future to French boys ; English and American 
youths sometimes became commanders of ships before 
they came of age, but before a Frenchman could be 
master of any sort of merchant-craft he had to be 
twenty-five years of age and to have made two cruises 
in the royal navy. 

But Girard, the cabin-boy, made the most of his 
chances and rose slowly in the merchant service ; he 
also saved his earnings, which is apparently the hardest 
task a sailor ever encounters. At the age of twenty- 
four Girard was master and part owner of a small vessel 
trading between the West Indies and American ports, 
where French law could not affect him ; he had also a 
tinancial interest in the cargoes. 

He could therefore feel that he had found his chance 
in life; he improved it, but within a year the Revolu- 
tionary War began and many British war-vessels made 
life miserable for the owners of trading craft. In 1776 
he sailed into the Delaware River and up to Philadel- 
phia to dodge the British cruisers ; he saved his ship 
and cargo, but dared not venture out again, so his 
business seemed ruined. 

Scores of other masters of coasting vessels found 
themselves in similar predicament in various ports; 
many of them took to drink and went to the bad while 



70 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



they waited for business conditions to change, for it is 
the custom of most men to think that one business is 
all they can master. Thef6 are at the present time 




Girard'a Residence in Philadelphia. 

some millions of Americans, all able-bodied and not 
lacking in brains, who nevertheless are too lazy or too 
stupid or too proud to attempt any business but the one 
which they have learned and liked. But Girard, well 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 



71 



though he knew and liked his profession, invested his 
money in groceries and wines, and became a trader 
ashore. While the American soldiers were in and near 
Philadelphia he sold all he could to the army ; when the 
enemy occupied the city he was grocer and wine-dealer 
to the British, and he made so much money that when 
British occupation, and 
the business stagnation 
which resulted, depressed 
the value of business 
buildings he got for a 
small sum a long lease of 
a block of stores which he 
afterward let at high 
rentals. It is evident that 
he did not doubt the final 
success of the American 
cause, for he became 
legally an American citi- 
zen while the war was in 
progress. 

Yet he made no friends. 
Most men of natural 
shrewdness and the desire 
to prosper attach great 
importance to the busi- 
ness possibilities of 
acquaintanceship and 

■friendship; Girard seemed satisfied to depend 
solely on his own wits and his money. He was so un- 
sociable, so absorbed in business and so careless of his 
personal appearance that he was called "Old Girard" 
before he was thirty years of age. A glance at a pretty 




Musical Secretary, presented to 
Girard by Joseph Bonaparte. 



72 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



servant-girl impelled him to a hasty marriage — a temot- 
ing chance of a kind that has ruined millions of promis- 
ing young men. His marriage resulted disastrously, for 
the parties to it were utterly unsuited to each other; in 
time the wife lost her reason and the husband lost 
whatever graces of mind and body he may have pos- 
sessed ; for years thereafter Girard seemed to be mere- 
ly a money-making machine. 




Girard's Old Yellow Chaise, in which he searched out the 
Afflicted. 



But it must be admitted that the machine was kept 
in good working order. When the Revolutionary War 
ended he again took to the sea and to trading with the 
West Indies. In business circles he was noted as 
.mercilessly exacting, yet he demanded no more than 















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7-4 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

he gave, for he was scrupulously honest in his dealings, 
paying in full whatever was due from him to any man. 
It was through his known integrity that, when the 
slaves of Hayti rose against their masters and devas- 
tated the island, in 1791-3, many rich Haytiens placed 
all their money and personal property on Girard's 
ships ; some of the owners were afterward killed by the 
insurrectionists and their unclaimed property greatly 
increased the little fortune of Stephen Girard. 

In 1793 Philadelphia discovered that "Old Girard," 
the man without friends and apparently without affec- 
tions, had a great warm heart as well as a strong, clear 
head. In that year the yellow fever, the scourge of the 
tropics, found its way to the city and destroyed one- 
sixth of the inhabitants. Physicians did not understand 
the disease, so it is not strange that the citizens became 
panic-stricken and abandoned their nearest friends to 
the ravages of the scourge. But among the cowards 
"Old Girard," the man without family and friends and 
with money enough to go elsewhere and avoid the in- 
fection, rose to the full stature of a hero. A hospital 
was established, but no one could be found to manage 
it, so Girard himself assumed charge, and went 
throughout the city in search of the infected,, whom he 
carried in his arms to the hospital, where he nursed 
them patiently and tenderly. He did the same in 1797 
and 1798 when the yellow fever again visited Philadel- 
phia. He might have become a popular hero, but 
praise was distasteful to him ; besides, his personal 
pride had been wounded, for he had been called infidel, 
atheist and many other bad names for his opposition to 
what most people called religion, yet which to him 
seemed a profitless quarrel between the many sects 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 



which at that time attached more importance to forms 
of belief than to the spirit of Christianity. 

When the present century began, Girard owned more 
ships than any other American, and was trading on 
his own account, and greatly to his profit, with all 




Drawing Room, Girard College. 



maritime countries. Men of abler minds and better 
chances wondered at his success and attributed it to 
''luck" ; in return Girard scowled, for a business man of 
character would as soon trust to a monkey as to luck ; 
Girard ascribed all his success to good management 
and to close attention to business. 



76 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

When the War of 1812 began, Girard owned many 
ships and cargoes and much real estate ; he had also 
one million dollars on deposit in England — the largest 
sum, in cash, held by any American at that date — 




Natural History Room, Girard College. 

larger, too, than a great majority of our supposed multi- 
millionaires could command to-day without sacrificing 
some of their property. He had already become the 
most prominent banker in the United States and had 
profited greatly by his ability to purchase properties 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 77 

that depreciated in value during the trade stagnation 
which resulted from three troublous political acts of 
the early years of the century — ^Napoleon's Milan De- 
cree, forbidding any nation to trade with England, with 
whom France was at war, the British ''Orders in Coun- 




Bathing Pool, Girard College. 



cil," which forbade any trading with France, and Presi- 
dent Jefferson's "Embargo," which prevented British 
ships from entering American ports and American 
vessels from leaving home ports. 

Girard's great financial service to the nation has al- 
ready been described ; it remains to be said that he was 



78 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

as considerate and courteous regarding repayment as 
if the loan had been small and to a personal friend, for 
he declared that he was willing to wait, if payment 
could not be made promptly — and he waited, without 
complaining. 

He was considerate and liberal to many benevolences, 
contributing large sums toward their support; "athe- 
ist" though he was still called, he gave much money to 
churches also, though confining his assistance to those 
which he believed were most earnest in laboring for 
the immediate good of the race. "Deeds — not creeds" 
seemed to be the standard by which he estimated 
ministers and sects, and he especially favored the 
"Friends," or Quakers, who were reputed as sharp at 
a bargain as he, yet who were very benevolent to the 
needy of all classes. 

When he died, wifeless and childless, and apparently 
unloved by any one, some of his relatives broke into 
his house, ransacked it, drank his wines, carried away 
much of his portable property and demanded his 
money. The marauding was stopped by the announce- 
ment that he had made a will, but when the will itself 
was read there was another wild scene, for though he 
had made bequests to many of his relatives, and also 
to his ship-captains and other faithful employes, the 
bulk of his fortune, which was the largest in America, 
was distributed among many benevolent and educa- 
tional institutions, most of it being set apart for the 
foundation and maintenance of a new school to be 
called Girard College, in which orphan children were to 
be maintained and educated until they had reached the 
age of fourteen years, after which they were to be ap- 
prenticed to trades which would enable them to sup- 
port themselves. Three of the five trustees of the insti- 



STEPHEN GIRARD. 



7i) 



tution were to be Quakers, l)iit the oddest stipulation 
regarding the institution read as follows : 

"I enjoin and require that no ecclesiastic, missionary 
or minister of any sect whatever 
shall ever hold or exercise any 
station or duty whatever in the 
said college ; nor shall any such 
person ever be admitted for any 
purpose, or as a visitor, within 
the premises appropriated to the 
purposes of the said college. In 
making this restriction I do not 
mean to cast any reflection upon 
any sect or person whatsoever, 
but as there is such a multitude 
of sects and such a diversity of 
opinion amongst them I desire 
to keep the tender minds of the 
orphans, who are to derive ad- 
vantage from this be quest, free 
from the excitement which clash- 
ing doctrine and sectarian con- 
troversy are so likely to pro- 
duce ; my desire is that all the 
instructors and teachers in the 
college shall take pains to instill 
into the minds of the scholars the 
purest principles of morality, so 
that, on their entrance into active 
life, they may, from inclination 
and habit, evince benevolence 
toward their fellow creatures, 
and a love of truth, sobriety and 
industry, adopting at the same time such religious ten- 




Girard College Cadet. 



80 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



ets as their matured reason may enable ' them to 
prefer." 

His relatives endeavored to break the will, and many 




Soldiers' Monument, Girard College. 



lawyers were glad to assist them, but ''Old Girard" had 
himself been assisted by a very able lawyer, so between 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 81 

the minuteness and distinctness of his own instructions 
and the legal knowledge of his adviser the will had 
been made strong enough to resist all attacks, and 
thousands of poor boys have received their first and 
greatest chance in life from the poor, ignorant boy 
whose only early chance was to begin at the 
bottom of a very hard business and work his way up- 
ward by hard work and hard sense. 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 
Born July 7th, 1783 ; Died March 29TH, 1848. 

When the boys who reached manhood about fifty 
years ago wished to express the extreme of wealth their 
common expression was "as rich as Astor," for Mr. 
Astor was the richest man in the United States. Yet 
he was born poor, in a little German town ; his father 
was a butcher, and apparently not a good manager, for 
in spite of his business his family sometimes lacked 
food. There were other depressing influences in the 
house, one of which was a bad-tempered step-mother, 
so the elder sons left home, and John Jacob followed 
their example as soon as he could. 

America was then the most interesting wonder-land 
of the world, for it was a new country and the only 
one which seemed to contain possibilities for poor 



82 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

young men. It was German custom that a young man 
should follow the trade of his father; young Astor did 
not wish to be a butcher, but his only other chance, in 
Germany, was to become a servant, so he resolved to 
go to the United States. Many Germans had already 
emigrated to this country, where they found them- 
selves at disadvantage through their ignorance of the 
language of the people, so young Astor, although full 
of the impatience of youth, resolved to make haste 
slowly. 

In his eighteenth year he left his home and "worked 
his passage" to England. According to the most affec- 
tionate of his biographers his only possessions besides 
a small bundle of clothing, w^ere "a pious, true and 
godly spirit, a clear understanding, sound elbow-grease 
and a wish to put it to good use." 

Reaching London he went to work with an elder 
brother, wdio was a maker of musical instruments ; his 
purpose was not so much to learn a trade as to earn 
his livelihood while acquiring the English language 
and learning all he could about America. Most young 
men think the one thing necessary to success in a new 
country is to reach the country itself, and through this 
mistake most of them fail and many of them die. In 
two years Astor saved seventy-five dollars ; one-third 
of this sum he paid for steerage passage to the United 
States and the remainder he invested in seven flutes, 
which w^ere to be his stock-in-trade with which to begin 
business in the new land. 

His first chance — the one which became the founda- 
tion of his fortune, came of a series of misfortunes that 
befell the ship in which he crossed the ocean. Many 
sailing vessels had crossed the Atlantic in a month, but 




John Jacob Astor. 



83 



64 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

young Astor might have imagined himself a Jonah, 
had he been in the least faint-hearted, for storms fre- 
quently drove the ship from her course, so she con- 
sumed four months in reaching Chesapeake Bay, and 
in the bay itself there was an accumulation of ice that 
imprisoned the unlucky vessel for two entire months. 

"Killing time" was the principal occupation of pas- 
sengers on an ocean voyage and there were not many 
ways of doing it, so a half-year trip must have been 
very tiresome. One of the cabin passengers on the 
ship with Astor was a German whose business was 
fur-buying for the European market ; he seems 
to have been overjoyed to find some one, even a steer- 
age passenger, who could speak his native language, 
so he talked much, and, as is the custom of most men, 
talked principally about his own line of business. Here 
was a chance to learn something more about America, 
so young Astor listened carefully ; he learned that if 
one would visit the Indians he could get fine furs in 
payment for cheap trinkets, and that the furs would 
bring good prices in New York but far better ones in 
Europe. He learned the names of grades of furs, and 
everything else that his fellow-passenger would tell 
about the business. A boy can ask an almost incredible 
number of questions when he gives his mind to it ; be- 
sides, young Astor really "wanted to know," which is 
one of the greatest of business virtues. 

After landing at Baltimore he made his way to New 
York, where he worked for a baker and tried to sell his 
flutes, but he did not drop furs from his mind. Within 
a few months he found employment with a fur dealer ; 
it was to do the hardest, dirtiest work in the store — to 
unpack the skins, clean them and repack them, but it 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 85 

taught him what he most wished to learn. After two 
years of this practical education he went into the fur- 
trade for himself and to make sure that his work would 
be properly done he did all of it himself. Other fur- 
bu\^ers sent agents to the Indian country to purchase 
for them, for the journey was long and hard and the 
country wild, with no inns or other comfortable places 
where a merchant might rest and be fed. Young Astor 
filled a pack with articles likely to please the natives, 
slung it upon his back, tramped through the interior 
of New York, where the Six Nations of the Iroquois 
Indians lived, got a lot of furs and carried them to 
New York. Often he had to sleep in the woods or on 
the ground, wade streams, and cook his own meals; 
his life was that of the backwoods, for there were few 
white settlements in central New York more than a 
hundred years ago. He visited the same tribes fre- 
quently, for as he was honest in his dealings with the 
savages he had no reason to fear them. 

On returning to New York he cleaned, assorted and 
packed his furs for shipment. In a very few years he 
felt able to accompany a large shipment to London and 
thus make sure of the best prices. He had learned that 
China was the best market for very fine furs, so he 
began to devise ways and means to sell for himself in 
the China markets. While in London he visited the 
office of the East India Company, which then was the 
greatest trading corporation in the world. The face 
of one of the higher officials of the company seemed 
familiar, for the sufficient reason that the man was a 
native of Astor's own town ; the young fur dealer intro- 
duced himself, and when the official learned that his 
fellow-townsman wished neither money nor credit and 

K I'uijr llvys 



86 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

would not accept a present he was so astonished and 
pleased that he gave the young man two pieces of paper 
which afterward were of great service. One was a 
general price-list of articles of import and export at 
Canton, the greatest treaty-port in China, while the 
other authorized the holder to trade at any port of the 
East India Company, which at that time literally owned 
the foreign trade privilege of some Asiatic cities. 

When Astor returned to the United States he took 
with him a large stock of pianos, flutes and violins, and 
became New York's principal dealer in musical instru- 
ments. The fur trade, however, demanded most of his 
time, and soon he was able to venture a cargo of fine 
skins and other goods to China. While in the Pacific 
his ship was obliged to stop at an island to replenish 
its stock of firewood ; when it reached Canton a 
Chinese merchant exhibited much interest in this wood 
and offered five hundred dollars a ton for it, for it 
proved to be sandalwood, which the Chinese esteem 
highly for medical purposes and as perfume. The wood, 
with the furs and other cargo, yielded Mr. Astor a profit 
of fifty thousand dollars, and at a time, too, when 
American merchants were complaining of dull trade 
and small profits ; a later cargo to China added two 
hundred thousand dollars to his wealth, though he 
competed with men who had known the China trade 
while he was still a boy in Germany. 

These "streaks of luck," as some men thought them, 
though they were merely the natural results of intelli- 
gence, industry and prudence, made Mr. Astoi' rich 
before he had been twenty years in America, so he was 
able to plan great enterprises and to demand and re- 
ceive much consideration from the national govern- 
ment, The Hudson Bay Company (English) had es- 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 



87 



tablished trading posts and was gathering furs all over 
British America ; Astor planned a similar enterprise 
to be conducted in the far west, with a great shipping 
port in Oregon and a chain of posts extending eastward 
to the settled portion of the country. The government 







.|lKi.iirEii 




f 


^^^^i^i^^i^ 


1 




^ 


]■■<" III' ^^M^fffc^.^.^^ 


f 





The "Astor House." — Once the largest hotel in the world. 



promised naval and military protection, for a line of 
trading stations across the continent would conduce 
to the settlement and development of our new terri- 
tory — *'The Louisiana Purchase," which included all 
the lands west of the Mississippi and north of old 
Mexico. This promising enterprise was delayed and 



88 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

finally given up because of the War of 1812, which 
made our government unable to send naval vessels to 
protect Astoria, Mr. Astor's port on the Pacific. 

Mr. Astor was greatly disappointed, for he had a 
large sum of money for investment, but he looked about 
him for new opportunities and he found them in real 
estate in New York. The city was growing steadily ; 
it had become the nation's principal seaport and busi- 
ness centre and its shape was so peculiar — a long, nar- 
row island between two rivers, that it could grow 
in but one direction — "up-town." So he bought great 
tracts of unoccupied land ; the prices were small and 
so were the taxes, but he lived to see some of them in- 
crease in value a hundredfold. He had long aspired to 
be the owner of the largest, handsomest house in the 
city, and in 1833 ^^^ began the erection of the Astor 
House, a hotel, which when completed was not only 
the largest and most costly house owned by any indi- 
vidual in New York but the largest hotel in the world. 

Apparently he intended that this building should be 
his monument, but as his life prolonged itself, and he 
began to enjoy his well-earned leisure by reading, 
study and travel, he bethought himself of his early lack 
of educational facilities, so by the terms of his will he 
founded the Astor Library — the first really great free 
library established in America. The sum formally 
appropriated for this purpose was $400,000, but he 
provided so well for the library's future, and his heirs 
have been so loyal to his purpose, that the Astor 
Library now contains more than a quarter of a million 
books of high quality, and is the favorite and greatest 
free library in the city. 

Mr. Astor's fortune was and is literally incalculable, 
except to his heirs, who have found it so large that they 



JOHN JACOB ASTOR. 



89 



have been obliged to give almost their entire attention 
to it. But little of the land acquired by Mr. Astor has 




The ''Astor Library." — The first really great library in America. 

ever been sold ; the second and third generations of 
Astors became great landlords by building upon the 



90 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

land, as the city grew toward it. A building lot, for 
residence purposes, in any settled portion of Manhattan 
Island is worth from seven thousand dollars to a quar- 
ter of a million dollars, according to position, and there 
are about sixteen lots to the acre; most of John Jacob 
Astor's many purchases were of large tracts of wild 
land at less than one hundred dollars per acre, so the 
value of the fortune which he left his heirs is almost 
beyond comprehension. Yet it was all earned by a poor 
boy whose chances were so few and small that no boy 
of the present day would think them worth any thing. 
The Astor career and the Astor fortune came of the 
man — not of his chances. 



ELI WHITNEY. 

Born December 8th, 1765; Died January 8th, 1825. 

Fifty years ago every one in the United States heard 
much about "King Cotton'' for the value of our cotton 
sent abroad equalled that of all other exports combined. 
The southern states produced (as they still do) more 
than three-quarters of all the cotton consumed in 
Europe ; other cotton-growing countries seemed unable 
to increase their yield to meet the demand, but the out- 
put of the southern states increased until, when the 
Civil War began, the yield was more than three million 
bales per year; it now exceeds ten million bales, of 
about five hundred pounds each, and the value of such 
as is exported is almost double that of our wheat 
exports. 



ELI WHITNEY. 



91 



Yet the commercial importance of this great staple 
product is due entirely to the ingenuity of a poor New 




Eli Whitney. 

England boy — Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton- 
gin, or machine, by which cotton-fibre is separated from 
it§ §e^d, 



92 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Whitney was born on a Massachusetts farm. His 
father made wheels and chairs ; he had a little shop 
containing a lathe and some tools, and in this shop 
Eli spent most of his time that could be spared from 
the farm, for he liked to handle tools. Many boys en- 
joy tools as playthings, and succeed in wasting much 
time as well as in spoiling the tools, but Eli's interest 
was genuine and practical, so it developed into extreme 
curiosity regarding machinery. Machines of any kind 
were rare in his day, but he studied the "why and 
wherefore" of all he could find, and did it so success- 
fully that one day he took apart his father's watch — 
the most complicated bit of machinery within reach and 
succeeded in putting it together again so successfully 
that his venture was never discovered. In his twelfth 
year he made a fiddle ; when his father learned of this 
he became despondent, for Mr. Whitney was very 
religious, and the good people of his time fully believed 
that fiddling was one of Satan's devices to destroy 
human souls. Nevertheless when the story of Eli's 
success was noised abroad all the damaged fiddles of 
the vicinity were brought to the boy for repair, to the 
financial benefit of the family. 

Eli not only used tools but devised and made new 
ones. While he was very young he lost his mother ; 
his father re-married and one of the new wife's most 
cherished possessions was a handsome set of table- 
knives. Little Eli examined these treasures carefully 
and said he could make knives equally good if he had 
proper tools — an assertion which greatly offended his 
step-mother, but when one of the knives was broken 
Eli made an exact duplicate, having first made the tools 
required by the work. 

The Revolutionary War began when Eli was ten 



ELI WHITNEY. 



93 



years of age, and soon afterward the colonists suddenly 
found themselves compelled to make their own nails ; 
they had previously depended upon England for small 
manufactured articles of general consumption. Per- 
suading his father to provide a small forge, Eli became 
a nail - maker 
and was kept 
quite busy, for 
"cut" nails had 
not yet been 
invented ; the 
nails were 
"hand-shaped" 
and cut from a 
thin rod of 
iron, and the 
rod had to be 
specially 
heated for 
each nail, so a 
pound of the 
smaller sizes 
required a full 
day of work. 

Nail-making 
seemed Eli's 
business 
chance, for the 
demand was active, the boy was industrious and expert, 
and an able artisan could always earn more than a 
farmer. But in his eighteenth year the war ended, and 
England, where iron was far cheaper than in America 
and men were glad to work for a shilling a day, re- 
sumed the shipment of nails, and Eli was out of a job. 
But he still had his hands and his wits; likewise his 




Cotton Boll Nearly Ripe. 



POOR BOYS' CHANCEa 



eyes. Ilat-pins 
were the spe- 
cial vanity and 
necessity of 
women, so the 
boy made hat- 
pins ; still 
more impor- 
tant, he made 
the h a n d- 
somest that 
could be 
found. The 
men of the pe- 
riod also had a 
special vanity; 
it was a hand- 
some cane, or 
"walking- 
stick" and Eli 
catered to it, 
to his own 
profit. 

In all these 
years he had 
been learning 
so m e t h ing, 
though not 
much, from 
books, but he 
was wise 
enough to see that a young man needed education if 
he expected to be anything more than a farmer or me- 




Cotton Boll Perfectly Ripe. 



ELI WHITNEY. 



95 



chanic. At nineteen he wished to go to college, but his 
father objected, and any farmer can understand why, 
for farm work is never done, and the withdrawal of 
one man from a 
farm often means 
ruin. The boy 
nursed his pur- 
pose ; he continued 
to assist his father 
until after he had 
come of age, but 
meanwhile he stud- 
ied hard, and at the 
age of twenty-three 
— older than most 
college graduates, 
he entered Yale 
College. Graduat- 
ing at twenty-seven 
he was engaged as 
tutor of the sons of 
a Georgia planter, 
but w h e n he 
reached Georgia he 
found another man 
in the position for 
which he had been 
employed. 

One of his fellow- 
passengers on the 
sea-voyage to 
Georgia was the 
widow of General 
Greene, the Revo- 







The Boll Shedding its Cotton. 



96 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



lutionary hero, to whom Georgia had given a large 
plantation in recognition of Greene's service in ridding 
the state of the British. Some people would ascribe 
Whitney's acquaintance with Mrs. Greene to "luck," 
yet of the many other passengers on the vessel none 
gained by meeting the general's widow, who was highly 

educated, well ac- 
quainted and a 
good judge of hu- 
man nature ; Gen- 
eral Washington 
had thought her a 
remarkable woman. 
Like many other 
poor Yankee boys, 
Whitney was well- 
bred, of high char- 
acter and good 
manners, as well as 
a college graduate. 
Learning of his dis- 
appointment o n 
reaching Georgia 
Mrs. Greene made 
the young man her 
guest at the planta- 
tion, and introduced him to a gentleman whom she 
was to marry. While embroidering with a tambour- 
frame — a favorite diversion of ladies a century or more 
age, her frame became broken ; Whitney made a new 
one, much better than the old. He also made tops for 
her children. 
One day some planters, calling on Mrs. Greene, be- 




The Boll after Shedding its Cotton. 



ELI WHITNEY. 



07 



moaned their financial condition. Their only product 
which was sure to sell at a profit was rice, but rice- 
culture, which required much swamp work, sickened 
and killed many slaves. Cotton grew easily, but there 




Picking Cotton. 



was "no money in it," for the work of detaching the 
fibre from the seeds was so slow that cotton was too 
costly to compete with flax, from which linen thread 
was made. If some one could devise machinery to 



98 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

separate the seed from the fibre, the planters could soon 
become rich, but, as matters were, only a few bags of 
cotton could be sold in a year at the price which it was 
necessary to ask. 

"Consult Mr. Whitney; he can do anything," said 
Mrs. Greene. "Look at my tambour-frame ! See the 
toys he has made for the children !" 

Whitney was consulted, and promised to try, but 
said he had never seen a cotton-boll, or pod ; no one 
could show him one, for the old crop had been disposed 
of and the new one w^as not yet in bloom ; later in the 
year they would show him thousands. But Whitney's 
curiosity had been excited, so he went to Savannah, 
Georgia's only city, and roamed about until he chanced 
upon some old cotton-bolls which had been sent to 
cotton-factors as specimens. Having learned the 
peculiarities of cotton he began to devise the desired 
separator of fibre from seed. Being a Yankee he fore- 
saw the possibilities of his work, so he labored in 
secret, his only confidant being Mr. Miller, Mrs. 
Greene's prospective second husband, who was a man of 
affairs and also a lawyer. 

In a few weeks Whitney had perfected a hand- 
machine which would separate fifty pounds of cotton- 
fibre in a day ; by this means cotton could be sold 
profitably at a few cents a pound, instead of at the price 
of flax that was ready for the spinning-wheel. Un- 
fortunately for him he let it be knowm that he had 
succeeded, so Georgia became wild with excitement. 
It was as if a great deposit of gold had been discovered ; 
indeed, all the gold in the world would not pay for the 
cotton that the southern states have sold since Whit- 
ney invented the cotton-gin. One night his work-room 
was broken into and the secret of his machine w^s dis- 
covered ; after that, his patent was of little Valtle, for 



ELI WHITNEY. 



99 



many similar machines were made, the patent laws of 
the time were imperfect, and United States courts were 
few and far apart. The inventor spent many years in 




Ginning Cotton. 

legal struggles, generally ineffective, to secure his 
rights. The south suddenly became rich, and two or 
three states were honorable enough to make cash 
grants Xq th^ inventor for his ereat scrviccj hxxt the 



100 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



moneys thus received scarcely paid the cost of Whitney's 
efforts to fight infringements of his patent. 

But Whitney still retained his inventive ability. He 
took a large contract to supply the United States army 
with muskets, but his desire to make the arms very 

good compelled 
him to progress 
slowly. When, 
however, the 
second war 
w i t h Great 
Britain 
W'hitney 
devised 

plan which all 
great manu- 
facturers o f 
s u b s e q u e nt 
years have 
been compelled 
to adopt ; it 
was to make 
each part of a 
gun so that it 
could be ap- 
plied to any 
workman would 
no matter how 




began 
had 
the 



Hauling Cotton. 



other gun. Until his day a single 
make all the parts of a machine ; 
good they were, they would be useless in any other 
machine of the same kind. Whitney made his ham- 
mers, barrels, triggers, springs, stocks, etc., so that any 
part would fit any other gun of his manufacture, so 
from a lot of injured muskets almost an equal number 
gf new ones could be made quickly, and broken parts 



ELI WHITNEY. 101 

could be replaced with duplicates. It is throug-h this 
principle of exact duplication of parts that modern 
machinery of all kinds, from watches, bicycles and 
sewing machines to locomotives and printing presses 
can be quickly repaired when they are disabled by the 
breaking of a single part. 

But Whitney's fame rests on the invention of the 
cotton-gin. It was a simple affair — any one could have 
made it, after he learned how. Thousands of Americans 
of Whitney's time understood the uses of tools, and 
many of them were in the southern states, yet the cot- 
ton-gin was invented by a man who, three months be- 
fore, had never seen a cotton-boll. Tools, with which 
millions of Americans are familiar are still the possible 
parents of thousands of great inventions, if there are 
brains behind the tools. It was not the cotton-gin 
that made Whitney ; his own intelligent interest in 
tools while he was still a boy in his father's little shop, 
made the cotton-gin, its inventor's reputation and the 
commercial importance of the south. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 

Born March 15TH, 1767; Died June 8th, 1845. 

Among the poor boys who became President of the 
United States — an office to which no man born rich 
was ever elected, no one had fewer or smaller early 
chances than Andrew Jackson. His father, an immi- 
grant from Ireland, was so poor that though he came 
to a portion of America where land was very cheap, he 
is said never to have owned an acre of ground, though 

7 Poor Boys 



102 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

he "squatted" on some land not previously occupied 
by any one, where he cleared a few acres and built a 
log-house. He never saw his son Andrew, for the boy 
was not born until a few days after his father's death. 

The home and farm which the elder Jackson had 
begun to make was of no use to the widow, whose two 
sons older than Andrew were still too young to do 
much hard work, so the family went from the grave of 
its head to the home of one of Mrs. Jackson's sisters, 
where Andrew was born. So new and rude was the 
country that Jackson did not even know of which state 
he was a native ; he believed himself to be a South Caro- 
linian, but the house in which he first saw the light was 
in North Carolina, a short distance from the state line. 

Soon after Andrew's birth Mrs. Jackson entered the 
family of another sister, Mrs. Crawford, for whom she 
became housekeeper, and here, where he and his 
mother were "poor relations," the future president 
spent the earlier half of his boyhood. 

His chance to get an education was such as other 
boys had in sparsely settled country districts more than 
a hundred years ago ; reading, writing, and arithmetic 
were the only branches taught in the log-cabin school- 
houses, there was but one school term a year, and it 
was very short. His mother, however, longed for better 
opportunities for Andrew, of whom she wished to make 
a Presbyterian minister. It is certain that in some way 
she succeeded in having him attend one or more private 
schools that had been established in the vicinity. How 
Andrew himself regarded his chance to become a 
preacher is not known, but the traditions of the people 
among whom he was reared indicate that he utterly 
lacked solemnity, dyspepsia, conceit and certain other 
qualities which some young men persist in construing 
as signs of "a call to preach." 



ANDREW^ JACKSON. 



103 




Andrew Jackson. 



Indirectly, however, his mother's hope was of great 
service to him, for the special schooling to which it led 
was about all he ever received ; that it was but little, 
and that he gave small attention to it, was proved in 



104 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



many ways in his after life, for of our many Presidents 
he was the most ignorant of whatever must be learned 
from books; even President Johnson, who could not 
write his own name until after he had married, was by 
comparison a well-read man. 

Young Jackson's best chance was that of choosing 
good company. The Scotch-Irish immigrants who 

formed a large pro- 
portion of the popu- 
lation of his part of 
North Carolina were 
not wealthy or 
learned, but they 
were as decent, earn- 
est and honest as the 
best people in Amer- 
ica. Their religion 
did not end with be- 
lief and worship ; it 
prompted them to 
live cleanly, industri- 
ously and to be just 
to all men. There 
were other and very 
different strains of 
blood in their por- 
tion of the state, and 
J a c k s o n's contact 
with them sometimes did him harm, but at heart he re- 
mained true to the stock from which he sprang, instead 
of improving his many chances to become self-indulgent 
and dissipated, like hundreds of the young ''bloods" 
who pretended to be socially superior to the simple 
Scotch-Irish farmers. In youth, and throughout his 
life, which was marked by many blunders, he differed 




Birthplace of Jackson. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



105 



from the great majority of men about him by being 
scrupulously honest and maintaining absolute reverence 
for the character of woman. 

The early chances that were most influential in mak- 
ing him prominent came to him during the Revolution- 
ary War, and gladly would he have avoided any of 
them, for they were painful in the extreme. He was 
but nine years of age when the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was signed, and for several years his out-of- 
the-way portion of the 
South was spared any 
of the horrors of war. 
But when Andrew was 
thirteen a British army 
under Cornwallis ap- 
peared in the Carolinas 
and Colonel Tarleton, a 
dashing and brutal cav- 
alry commander, led 
three hundred troopers 
through the Waxhaw 
district, in which Jack- 
son lived. He fell upon 
a detachment of militia, 
killed more than a hun- 
dred and wounded a 
hundred and fifty. Jack- 
son and his mother were of the party that afterward 
cared for the wounded, and this experience gave the 
boy an intense hatred of the British. 

Andrew's life and disposition developed in him a 
strong fighting spirit and a desire to be a leader. In 
those days all boys were wrestlers, and Andrew, being 
slender and not strong, was generally worsted in 
such struggles, but in later years one of his school- 




A Log Cabin Schoolhouse. 



106 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

mates said of him "I could throw him three times 
out of four, but he never would stay throwed. He was 
dead game, and never would give up." He aspired to 
leadership, and he would risk his life for any boy who 
would accept his protection. Like many another boy 
or man who is outclassed physically by his fellows, he 
used his wits and tongue to supplement his insufficient 
strength, so he became somewhat of a bully, but he was 
always ready to take the consequences of his words 
and acts. One of his personal enemies said afterward 
that of all the boys he had known, Jackson was the 
only bully who was not a coward. 

The battle of the Waxhaw caused the women and 
children to flee from the country. Andrew went to the 
home of a distant relation of his mother, near Char- 
lotte, N. C, where he "worked for his board" but spent 
his leisure hours in making weapons — spears, toma- 
hawks, etc., with which to fight the British when his 
chance should come, but when finally he met the foe, 
the results were entirely humiliating and enraging to 
him. He and an elder brother joined a party of horse- 
men and went to a place where the militia were to 
rendezvous to oppose some of Lord Rawdon's troops. 
In the British advance rode a party of Tories whom the 
patriots mistook for their own militia ; before the error 
was discovered some of the militia had been captured 
and the others were so greatly outnumbered that they 
were obliged to run for their lives. The next day 
Andrew and his brother were captured. The British 
officer in command ordered Andrew to clean his boots ; 
the boy, only fourteen years of age, replied 

"Sir, I am a prisoner of war, and demand to be 
treated as such." 

The officer drew his sword and cut at Andrew's head ; 
the boy tried to parry the blow with his left arm, on 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



lOT 



which, and on his head, he received wounds of which 
he carried the scars to his grave. The officer then re- 
peated the order to Andrew's brother Robert, who, on 




'* Sir, I am a Prisoner of War. 



refusing-, received a sword-cut which disabled him. 
Meanwhile the troopers were destroying everything in 
the house in which the Jacksons had been captured- 



108 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

even taking clothes from the baby which the boys' 
aunt held in her arms. It was an unexpected conclu- 
sion of a chance to fight the British, but a relative of 
the family said forty years afterward "I'll warrant 
Andy thought of it at New Orleans," where Jackson 
commanded the American* troops and the British suf- 
fered the quickest, bloodiest and most humiliating 
defeat that befell them in the nineteenth century. 

Andrew and his wounded brother, with the other 
prisoners, were marched to a prison at Camden, forty 
miles distant, and were not allowed a mouthful of 
food or water on the way. In the prison they were 
robbed of their clothing and badly fed. In addition to 
their other discouragements, smallpox broke out in the 
camp. One day the American General Greene ad- 
vanced on the post, which was held by Lord Rawdon 
with a small force, and the prisoners hoped to be re- 
leased. As those were the days of old-fashioned, short- 
range weapons, Greene encamped on a small hill only 
a mile away, in plain view of the prison, to await the 
arrival of his artillery, which had not been able to 
move as rapidly through the soft roads as the foot- 
soldiers. Greene was over-confident, his force being 
much the larger, so one day, while the Americans were 
not under arms, Rawdon dashed upon their left, sur- 
prised them and put them to flight. Jackson saw this 
entire fight ; it was an experience that seemed utterly 
unlike a chance in life, but in after years he became one 
of the few commanders who never permitted themselves 
to be surprised. 

Soon he and his brother took the smallpox ; both 
were still suffering from their wounds, so their condi- 
tion seemed hopeless. But their mother, who possessed 
great force of character, went to Camden and succeed- 
ed in effecting a small exchange of prisoners, among 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



109 



whom were her two sons. Andrew, hatless, barefoot- 
ed and clad only in shirt and trowsers, weak and burn- 
ing with the fever of smallpox, walked forty miles to 
the family home ; his brother, who was still weaker, 




** Andrew walked forty miles to the family home. 



rode, but two days afterward Andrew was insane and 
his brother was dead. 

It was almost half a year before Andrew recovered. 
When he was out of danger his mother, who had been 
unable to forget the horrors of prison life as she had 
seen them exemplified in her sons and some of her 



110 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

neighbors, went with two other women to carry some 
creature-comforts to the Americans in British prison- 
ships at Charleston, one hundred and sixty miles dis- 
tant. They gained admission to the ships and delivered 
their parcels, but soon after starting on the return 
journey Mrs. Jackson was struck down by ship-fever 
of which she died. 

The war in which Andrew had hoped to fight the 
British, ended soon afterward, leaving the boy weak, 
fatherless, motherless, brotherless, homeless, penniless, 
dependent, and only fifteen years of age. Apparently 
the best chance in sight was for him to work in a sad- 
dler's shop, which he did for half a year. His health 
was bad, for he suffered frequent attacks of ague, yet 
he must have worked hard and well, for he earned 
money enough to buy a fine horse when he was but 
sixteen. In the vicinity were some families who had 
''refuged" from Charleston, S. C, and were waiting for 
the British to evacuate the city. Among them were 
some young men of "sporting" tastes, from whom 
Jackson learned to gamble and drink. Whatever he 
did was done with all his might, so one day he staked 
his horse against two hundred dollars, on a throw of 
dice, and won the money. Here was a chance, indeed, 
to "keep the pace" with his new companions ; but 
Andrew said afterward "I had new spirits infused into 
me, left the table, and from that moment to the present 
time I have never thrown dice for a wager." He rode 
away and toward his old home, came to the conclusion 
that he had spent a year very foolishly and that he must 
change his ways if he expected ever to amount to any- 
thing. What he did in the next two years is not 
known, except that he taught school part of the time; 
any one could conduct a country school who knew how 
Xq read; write and cipher and cQwlcl ^Iso thrash any boy 



ANDREW JACKSON. Ill 

in school when occasion required ; some of the pupils 
in those days were men in size and strength, and even 
in years. 

But school-teaching was an irregular occupation ; 
Andrew looked about him for a chance to do some- 
thing better, but saw nothing but the law. The Tory 
— or Royalist — lawyers were disbarred from practice 
as soon as the war ended, so the profession seemed to 
promise much for men who could master it quickly. 
Jackson, then in his eighteenth year, rode nearly two 
hundred miles in search of some one with whom to 
study, and finally made satisfactory arrangements with 
a prominent lawyer at Salisbury, N. C, a town 
of not more than a thousand inhabitants. Here he 
studied for two years ; the traditions of the town de- 
clare that he also made himself the liveliest young man 
in Salisbury. His own account of himself, given many 
years later was, "I was but a raw lad then, but I did my 
best." The four last words explain his entire career — 
a career that seemed to set at defiance all rules of suc- 
cess, for besides having enjoyed very few opportunities 
in his youth his mental limitations and hindrances were 
great. He was by nature quick-tempered, over-bear- 
ing, unreasonable and impatient of restraint of any 
kind ; he was so narrow-minded that he could see only 
one side of any subject. So far as he could see and 
think, however, he did his best. 

He was admitted to the bar before he came of age, 
but apparently could find no clients at Salisbury, so he 
removed to a town forty miles away, where two of his 
acquaintances kept a general store. Legal business 
was scarce there also, but he had a chance to learn how 
country stores were managed — and he learned it. 

Just before he came of age he got an appointment 
that gave him the chance of his life, though it was 



112 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

one which other men had refused, for it promised very 
hard work and many opportunities to be killed. He 
w^as appointed solicitor (district attorney, or public 
prosecutor) of the Superior Court of the Western Dis- 
trict of North Carolina. This judicial district included 
the entire area of what is now the state of Tennessee. 
It contained a very few thousand white men, a large 
proportion of whom were fugitives from justice, and it 
abounded in w^arlike Indians. The new official's prin- 
cipal duties were to apprehend criminals and torment 
poor debtors — two classes of men wdio, in so sparsely 
settled a country, could safely rid themselves of a 
troublesome visitor by shooting him, so young Jack- 
son was obliged to acquire a civil tongue and suppress 
some of his natural arrogance. The Indians were 
always ready and anxious to kill lone white men, yet 
the solicitor had to visit all parts of his immense dis- 
trict ; he therefore became a close student of Indian 
ways. How necessary this w^as may be inferred from 
the fact that at that time and for at least seven years 
after, there was not a month in which several men were 
not killed by Indians within a few miles of Nashville, the 
principal town of the "district." 

In 1790 the western district w^as ceded by North 
Carolina to the nation and became Tennessee Terri- 
tory, but young Jackson retained his position. Six 
years later he was known by sight and reputation to 
almost every man in Tennessee as a truthful, honest, fear- 
less man and a faithful and untiring official, so when 
in 1796 the territory became a state, Andrew Jackson, 
aged tw^enty-nine, was sent to the national capital as 
Tennessee's first member of the House of Representa- 
tives. Before his term ended he was appointed to the 
Senate to fill a vacancy, where, for the first time in his 
life, he seemed to be overawed ; as he was no fool, he 



ANDREW JACKSON. 113 

saw that his associates were wiser than he, and the 
Senate Chamber was no place for the bravado and 
domineering manner which had sometimes aided him 
among- men of mental calibre smaller than his own. 
Daniel Webster afterward wrote that President Jeffer- 
son, who was Vice-President and therefore Chairman 
of the Senate when Jackson became a senator, said that 
Jackson could never speak, because of the rashness of 
his feelings ; he had tried, but was choked by anger. If 
this was true the young man's first year in the Senate 
gave him still another chance to acquire the self-con- 
trol which he gravely needed. Either through his 
temper, or his sense of mental inferiority, or his longing 
to return to familiar scenes and to the large landed 
properties he had acquired in Tennessee, and to em- 
bark in new enterprises, he resigned the Senatorship 
after a year of service, and rode back to his home — a 
trip that consumed six weeks. 

This was in 1798, and he took with him a stock of 
goods (purchased with tne proceeds of a large sale of 
Tennessee real estate) with which to start a country 
store. In this same year he was elected a Judge of the 
Supreme Court of the state at a salary of $600 per year, 
but in his spare days and weeks he continued his mer- 
cantile business. Prices were necessarily high, for all 
goods had to be ''packed" from the east on the backs of 
horses, but there was scarcely any money in the coun- 
try, so he had to take payment in whatever the cus- 
tomers could offer — land, horses, slaves, corn, furs, 
skins, beeswax, potash, etc., which goods had to be 
disposed of afterward ; thus he learned to become an 
expert trader. A stupid legal blunder, lawyer though 
he was supposed to be, threatened him with ruin ; this 
danger gave him a chance to think of the risks to which 
debt exposed a man, and from that time he began to 



114 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

hate debt intensely and to govern his business affairs 
accordingly ; the result was that to the end of his days 
his written or verbal promise to pay was "as good as 
gold," for he always had the gold with which to make 
it good. 

He had already become a militia officer, for his state 
always needed an armed and organized body of men 
with which to fight the Indians. There had been some 
expectation, too, of war with Spain. Until the 
great area west of the jNIississippi, later known as the 
"Louisiana Purchase," had been transferred by Spain 
to France and ceded by France to the United States, 
Spain claimed the exclusive right of navigation on the 
Mississippi, and even after we held almost all of both 
banks of the river the Spanish territory of Florida in- 
cluded almost all of the eastern bank of the Mississippi 
which is now Louisiana, so Spain claimed the mouth of 
the Mississippi, which was the sole means of exit for 
the western states and territories. Jackson had an in- 
stinctive longing to fight — which to his peculiar quality 
of mind meant to conquer — any nation, race, power or 
political influence which promised or even wished harm 
to the United States. Patriotism was in him not only 
a principle, but a passion and for this reason it became 
one of the secrets of his success. All men are supposed 
to love the land in which they were born, just as all 
men are supposed to love their parents, but true, 
earnest, persistent, intelligent love of country is quite 
as rare as any other great virtue ; a greater soldier than 
Jackson (General Grant) once said ''As individuals we 
do not think well enough of our country." 

Jackson proved the genuineness and intensity of his 
patriotism in many ways, but never more strongly than 
after his meetings with Aaron Burr. Burr was Vice- 
President of the LInited States, in 1804, when he killed 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



115 



^<^^ 



Alexander Hamilton in a duel and at the same time 
destroyed his own political standing, as well as his 
previous position in the respect of men. His many- 
sided, restless mind devised some schemes of territorial 
acquisition and dominion in the great southwest; the 
exact purpose of 
these schemes will 
probably never be 
known to the world, 
for Burr was an 
adept at keeping 
secrets. He was also 
an adept at per- 
suasion ; as an old 
saying has it, "He 
could talk the birds 
off of the bushes." 
On his way to the 
southwest he called 
on Jackson, w\^ re- 
ceived him gladly, 
for Jackson believed 
in dueling ; besides, 
the man whom Burr 
had killed was a 
member of the Fed- 
eralist party, which Jackson hated with all the earnest- 
ness of a man who could see but one side of any thing. 
But after Burr had departed and Jackson heard 
rumors that the ex-vice-president had designs upon a 
portion of the new domain of the United States, then 
Jackson sent couriers to warn the United States mili- 
tary commander on the lower Mississippi of Burr's 
supposed intentions, and he also wrote the government 




Aaron Burr. 



116 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

at W'asliington all he knew of iiurr's plans, and offered 
his services and those of his division of Tennessee 
militia should it be necessary to send an army against 
Burr. 

When war was declared against Great Britain in 1812 
Jackson and his militia were called out for service in 
the southwest, but their early duty consisted only of 
two hard marches, each of several hundred miles ; it 
was in these marches that Jackson earned his nickname 
"Old Hickory," for he was as poorly-fed and as often 
soaked with rain as any private soldier. In 1813 the 
Creek Indians, occupying a great area of the Mississip- 
pi valley, rose against the whites ; Jackson led his 
militia against them, defeated them in three successive 
battles, and cowed them effectively. 

For this service, and also because it was evident 
that he was the proper man to defend New Orleans 
against the British, he was appointed a major-general 
of the regular army in 1814, by President Madison, 
though Madison disliked him for personal and political 
reasons. One of his first acts was to s^ze the town of 
Pensacola ; it w^as in Spanish territory, and Spain was 
supposed to be at peace with the United States, yet 
the British were using the town and harbor as a base 
of operations against New Orleans. 

Jackson was victorious at the battle of New Orleans. 
The glories of that trial-at-arms have been celebrated 
in song and story and history, but Jackson made a 
greater conquest before the battle began, for he cap- 
tured the city itself. In 1814 New Orleans, though it 
contained only twenty thousand inhabitants, was the 
most populous city west of the Alleghanies and south 
of the Ohio. The white population consisted of several 
cliques, no one of which was heartily American in feel- 
ing. There was a strong Spanish clique, and a strong 




g I'wr B^'j 



118 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

French clique, both looking regretfully backward to 
the "good old times" and detesting the new American 
rule. The Americans in the city were timorous and 
discouraged, for the better men among them were 
merchants engaged in trade with the upper river and 
its tributaries, so their interests prompted them to side 
with whoever might prove strongest and assure pro- 
tection to business. The government of the United 
States seemed too far away to be depended upon; be- 
sides, it had not always been strong enough to pro- 
tect such of its citizens as had been far from the older 
states and menaced by foreign powers. Besides these 
distinct cliques there were many hundreds of adven- 
turers, of the ordinary sea-port type, who were ready 
to join whichever side might offer the best pay, and 
there was also a strong pirate-smuggler element with 
which the British were in communication. 

Jackson descended upon the city in advance of his 
troops and conquered New Orleans with the force of 
his own personality. He was now in the prime of life ; 
he had acquired winning manners and he had also 
fastened a determined grip upon the faults of his worst 
enemy, wlio was himself. In a few days he put stout 
hearts into all the Americans and won over the French 
and Spaniards ; he also encouraged patriotic spirit in 
the hearts of the pirates and smugglers ; it was the first 
virtue that had ever been there, so the possessors made 
much of it. 

The result of the battle of New Orleans made Jack- 
son a popular hero throughout the country, and es- 
pecially in the states and territories in the Mississippi 
valley. Jackson's name was thereafter to be heard 
frequently, for in 1817 he fought and vanquished the 
Seminole Indians in the Florida territory, which still 
belonged to Spain, Some of his acts in this war were 




Vanquished Chieftain in Jackson's Tent. 



119 



120 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

indefensible by any usage or precedent of international 
law, but trouble with Spain, over Jackson's irregulari- 
ties, was in time averted by the cession of the territory 
to the United States, and Jackson became the first 
Governor of Florida Territory. 

In 1823 he was again sent to the Senate by Tennes- 
see ; this time he did not resign, for he had become 
acquainted with men and politics ; besides, his state 
legislature had recommended him for the Presidency 
of the United States. In 1824 he became formally a 
presidential candidate ; three other prominent men — 
John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay and William H. 
Crawford, were in the field; Jackson received a larger 
electoral vote than any of them, but as no one had a 
majority of all the votes the election went to the House 
of Representatives, which selected Adams. Jackson 
was elected President in 1828 and re-elected in 1832. 
In both terms he distinguished himself as the leader 
of his party and he made many enemies by his course 
toward the United States Bank and by making the 
government strongly partisan ; he discharged more 
government employees, for political reasons, than all 
his predecessors combined. Yet he won the affection 
and confidence of the people more generally than any 
other president but Washington had done, for he was 
believed to be inflexibly honest and he was known to 
be extremely earnest. His greatest popularity came of 
his manner toward South Carolina when that state 
attempted to "nullify" — make of no effect, a national 
law of which the state's political leaders disapproved. 
By this time two generations of Americans had become 
sufficientl}^ acquainted with the Constitution and the 
national government to have outgrown early suspicions 
of both and to love both, so when Jackson threatened 
to use the whole military power of the nation, if 



ANDREW JACKSON. 



121 



necessary, to suppress the illegal purpose of the state 
of which he believed himself a native, he found the 
entire country "at his back." 

When he retired from the Presidency he was almost 
seventy years of age but he lived nine years longer. 




Jackson's Tomb, at His Home, "The Hermitage.' 

He outlived his natural arrogance and his suspicion 
of the motives of men who did not agree with him in 
all things. He even became an humble, sincere, prac- 
tical Christian, which probably cost him the greatest 



122 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

struggle of his life, for to conform his will to any other, 
even that of Heaven, was contrary to every instinct 
and practice of his nature, yet in this, as in all his other 
great efforts, his absolute honesty of purpose "saw 
him through." His faults were many, but none of 
them was vulgar, none dishonest ; he became great not 
through them, but despite them. 



HENRY CLAY. 
Born April i2th, 1777; Died June 29TH, 1852. 

No man who did not become president was ever leader 
of an American political party longer than Henry Clay, 
nor did any other man do as much as Clay ro hold the 
different parts of the country together in the troublous 
days when slavery and the tariff had become sectional 
issues. He was the father of the most important meas- 
ures which led to the modern system of internal improve- 
ments and he also gave practical method and scope to 
the theory of "protection of home industries." He was 
a brilliant orator, an honest man, a charming gentleman, 
an ardent patriot and a leader whose popularity was 
equalled only by that of Andrew Jackson. 

He was born poor, in a poor part of Virginia, but he 
was not ashamed of his birth, though a native of a State 
in which wealth counted for much. When in later years 
he was taunted, by the famous John Randolph, with his 
humble origin, he replied proudly as well as frankly, "I 
was born to no proud paternal estate. I inherited only 
infancy, ignorance and indigence." His father was a 



HENRY CLAY. 



123 



Baptist minister ; the Baptists were very good people, 
but they paid very smaH salaries to their preachers. 







Henry Clay. 

When Clay was but four years of age his father died, 
leaving seven children for whom the widow had to pro- 



124 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

vide, so all were obliged to work. When Henry became 
a man and a candidate for high ofihces he was called, in 
iiiemory of the circumstances of his early youth, and to 
endear him to the common people, "The Mill-boy of the 
Slashes." The "Slashes" was the local name of the part 
of Hanover County in which his family had Hved, and a 
"mill-boy," at that time, signified the person who kept a 
family supplied with material for bread. Country people 
a hundred years ago — even fifty years ago, seldom 
bought flour or meal ; when either was needed some one 
had to carry grain to the nearest mill, w^ait to have il: 
ground, and carry it home. The task was not an easy 
one when the family was large ; meal was more largely 
used than flour, partly because there w^ere more and 
easier ways of preparing it, and partly because corn was 
easier to "raise" and harvest than wheat, for it might be 
safely left on the stalks for a month or two after it had 
ripened. On the other hand, corn made hard work, in 
the olden times, for* the mill-boy of any southern family 
too poor to own slaves, for it had to be shelled by hand, 
and from a bushel, w^eighing less than sixty pounds, the 
miller would retain a large fraction as ''toll," or pay for 
grinding. Besides, mills were far apart, so a large 
family's mill-boy was kept quite busy, even if he had a 
horse or mule to carry the bag ; many of the boys were 
their own beasts of burden, so "The Mill-boy of the 
Slashes" was an expression full of meaning wiien applied 
to Clay. 

Mrs. Clay married a second time and became very rich 
in children — she was mother of fifteen, but her second 
husband was poor, so at the age of fourteen Henry was 
obliged to do something for himself. He became store- 
boy for a Richmond merchant but within a year his step- 
father succeeded in placing him amon^ the copyists 'In 



MENR^ CLAV 



m 



the clerk's office of Virginia's High Court of Chancery. 
The boy's educational opportunities had been few and 
small; the school-house at the "Slashes" was a log cabin 
with a floor of earth and without a window ; light was 





•^»^^ 






F-, ^^^^ 


r 


1 -f "^flP 




r 


1 '^^;^^{i^^|^|||S|§^%7^^^^^^ 


9^T^ 


i^ 


E.; „ ^--j^-^j, ,oa- «&-, f^^igg^g^fe^-lf 




J 



Birthplace of Henry Clay. 

admitted by leaving the door open. From his getting a 
place as a copyist, however, it is evident that he had 
learned to write legibly and with some degree of neat- 
ness. Tradition says that his personal appearance, when 



126 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

he first entered the office, was pecuHar ; Virginia was still 
the most populous and aristocratic State in the Union, 
and in the pubHc offices at its capital were many young 
men from wealthy families, while Clay was distinctly 
"countrified" in appearance. 

But his humble, uncertain position seemed his only 
chance, so he was obfiged to make the best of it — to be 
sneered at and teased, and to fight his own battles, for 
his step-father, with the family, removed to Kentucky, 
and Clay found himself left, to use his own words, "A boy 
fifteen years of age in the office of the High Court of 
Chancery, without guardianship, without permanent 
means of support, to steer my course as I might or could. 
A neglected education was improved by my own exer- 
tions, without the benefit of systematic instruction." 

He had another chance, however, in common with all 
the boysand young men in the office, and, whether un- 
consciously or by intention, he availed himself of it. It 
was the chance to acquire and practice good manners of 
genuine quality. Some of the coarsest and wickedest 
men in the world display exquisite polish, at times, yet 
they seldom deceive men of experience. Clay's manner 
attracted the attention of Chancellor Wythe, who, being 
an aristocrat by birth and breeding as well as a lawyer of 
large experience, was a skilled and fastidious judge of 
human nature. The chancellor had a nervous affection 
which incapacitated him for writing, he needed an 
amanuensis, and from -the many clerks in the office he 
selected the boy from the Slashes. The boy did so well 
that the chancellor kept him at his side. Wythe was no 
"fossil" official ; he had been a member of the Continental 
Congress and a signer of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence ; he was also a noble specimen of a noble class 



HENRY CLAY. 



127 



—"an old Virginia gentleman," and to his example and 
counsel Clay owed much of his own subsequent success. 

By Wythe's advice and through his influence Clay be- 
came, at the age of nineteen, a law student in the office 
of the attorney general of Virginia. Partly through his 
association with Wythe, partly through his own person- 
ality, he won the esteem of many prominent Virginians, 
among whom 
were Edmund 
Pendleton, Jus- 
tice of the Court 
of Appeals, 
Bushrod Wash- 
ington, Justice 
of the Supreme 
Court of the 
United States, 
and John Mar- 
shall, Chief Jus- 
tice of the Su- 
preme Court, 
and also one of 
the noblest o f 
Virginians, '"^he Mill-boy of the Slashes." 

though he too had been a poor boy. 

Clay followed his family to Kentucky, and was ad- 
mitted to the bar while still under age. He afterwards 
said of his prospects at that time : "I remember how com- 
fortable I thought I should be if I could make one hun- 
dred pounds, Virginia money (less than five hundred 
dollars) per year, and with what delight I received the 
first fifteen shillings fee. My hopes were more than 
realized ; I immediately rushed into a successful and 
lucrative practice." 




128 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Yet he did not have an unusual chance, like Andrew 
Jackson's in Tennessee, for Kentucky was already a 
State, with more inhabitants than New Hampshire, Ver- 
mont, New Jersey or Georgia, and Clay began practice 
at Lexington, then Kentucky's principal city, and con- 
taining many lawyers of Virginia education and training. 
But he had followed the counsel of a good adviser and 
remembered much that his pen had copied of Chancel- 
lor's Wythe's decisions. Nowadays, short-hand and 
typewriting having become common, tens of thousands 
of young men are copyists in business offices and think- 
ing only of the pay they wall get for their daily work. Any 
one over-hearing their conversation out of office hours 
would imagine that all employers are hard masters, or 
"old sticks," or both, and that what goes into one ear of a 
copyist goes out at the other without leaving a single 
idea in the brain. The writer of these lines knows scores 
of such young men ; one of them, not the most promising, 
either, jumped from twelve dollars per week to twelve 
thousand per year, merely by giving his head as well ns 
his fingers to his employers' interests ; the remainder are 
still working at twelve dollars (or less) a week — except 
when out of work. Boys dififer more than chances. 

Clay quickly interested himself in politics, as all wise 
men do in a new State, and when in 1799 Kentucky re- 
vised her constitution he urged the adoption of a section 
providing for the gradual abolition of slavery. At the age 
of twenty-seven he was elected to the legislature ; at 
twenty-nine he was sent to the United States Senate to 
fill the unexpired term of a senator who had withdrawn. 
His time of service was restricted to a single session, but 
he made haste to put himself on record in favor of 
internal improvements which were for the general good ; 



130 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

he proposed the bridging of the Potomac at Washington, 
the digging of a canal around the "Falls" of the Ohio, 
near Louisville — a serious hindrance to travel between 
east and Vv^est, and, new member though he was, he pro- 
posed and carried, with but three dissenting votes, a 
motion directing the Secretary of the Treasury to report 
"a plan for the appropriation of such means as are within 
the power of Congress to the purpose of operating roads 
and making canals, together with a statement of under- 
takings of that nature wdiich, as objects of public im- 
provement, require and deserve the aid of the govern- 
ment." 

After serving two more terms in the Legislature he 
was sent to the Senate in 1809, again to fill a vacancy for 
a short time. In 181 1 he was elected to the House of 
Representatives, and on the day of his first appearance 
in that body he was elected Speaker — ^the first and only 
instance of its kind on record. But he had already be- 
come well-known at the national capital, and the times 
required a man of his undo.ubted courage and executive 
ability in the Speaker's chair. War with Great Britain 
seemed .necessary ; Clay formed the committees with a 
view to liostiHties, so when the new president (Monroe) 
declared war there was no delay in voting men and ships 
and asking the people for a large loan. When after two 
years of fighting the enemy offered to negotiate a peace. 
Clay was added to the American commission. While 
still in Europe he was re-elected to the House ; on his 
return to the L^nited States he w^as re-elected Speaker, 
and was accorded the same honor in the several subse- 
cjuent terms for which he was elected. 

During his long service in the House of Representa- 
tives he w^orked hard and intelligently for the en- 



HENRY CLAY. 



131 



couragement of American manu-factures and for the de- 
velopment and drawing together of the different parts 
of the country by means of internal improvements ; 




Residence of Henry Clay — "Ashland." 

he also manifested great interest in all other matters of 
national import. When the first serious clash between 
North and South occurred, over the extension of slav- 
ery, Clay devised the Missouri Compromise, by which 



132 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

all new territories and states formed north of the pro- 
longation of the southern line of Missouri should be 
free. When the South American colonies revolted 
against Spanish rule Clay urged that they be recognized 
as independent nations ; when Greece rose against 
Turkey he insisted that she should have the moral sup- 
port of American recognition. 

In 1824 he was a candidate for the Presidency; there 
were three others in the field — General Jackson, John 
Quincy Adams and William H. Crawford. Clay was 
defeated, but Adams, who was elected, made him Secre- 
tary of State. After Adams retired Clay was out of 
ofiice two years and spent the time in legal practice, 
to improve his financial condition ; the salary of a 
Congressman, until President Grant's last term, was 
smaller than that of an upper clerk or book-keeper. 
But in 183 1 Kentucky sent him to the Senate, where 
he spent twelve successive years, which were marked 
by much work and excitement. In 1832 he was again 
a candidate for the Presidency, but was badly beaten 
by General Jackson, who had already served one term. 
In 1833 Clay, settled a sectional dispute by devising a 
compromise tariff act. In 1844 he became, for the third 
time, a presidential candidate, but was defeated by 
James K. Polk. He expected the Whig nomination for 
the Presidency in 1848, but it was "a soldier's year;" 
the Mexican War had just ended, and the great prize 
went to General Taylor. 

Once more elected to the Senate, Clay devised, in 
1850, his last compromise on the slavery question ; it 
was really a series of measures, now known as "The 
Omnibus Bill," providing for a fugitive slave law, the 
abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, the 
admission of California as a free state and the creation 



PETER COOPER. 133 

of the territories of Utah and New Mexico with no re- 
strictions as to slavery. He was a Southerner by birth 
and residence and, respecting slavery as a constitu- 
tional right, he opposed any and all projects of aboli- 
tion by force, but in 1849 ^e again urged upon Ken- 
tucky his gradual abolition plan of half a century be- 
fore ; had Kentucky or any other state heeded the sug- 
gestion and set the example the nation would probably 
have been spared the Civil War, which, aside from the 
great loss of life, and the injury to national feeling, 
cost several times as much money as would have 
bought and freed all the slaves in the South. 

Many men born in Virginia were in national politics 
when Clay was at the extreme of his popularity and in- 
fluence, but none of them attained so enviable a repu- 
tation or are so respectfully and affectionately remem- 
bered as the mill-boy who "inherited only infancy, 
ignorance and indigence," nor had any of them so few 
chances to help them upward. 



PETER COOPER. 

Born February I2th. 1791 ; Died April 4th, 1883. 

Nearly half a century ago some poor New York boys 
who were trying to educate themselves learned to their 
great delight that a rich man named Peter Cooper was 
about to erect and endow a great building in which 
was to be given "instruction in branches of knowledge 
by which men and women earn their daily bread ; in 
laws of health and improvement of the sanitary condi- 

q Poor Roys 



134 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

tions of families as well as individuals; in social and 
political science, whereby communities and nations ad- 
vance in virtue, wealth and position, and finally in 
matters which affect the eye, the ear and the imagina- 
tion and form a basis of recreation to the working- 
classes." 

The building referred to was erected at a cost of 
more than half a million- dollars, and was endowed with 
cash and property to the amount of a hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars. It contained, besides the greatest 
"hall" or assembly room in America, many stores and 
offices, the income of which was applied to the main- 
tenance of the schools and a great library and reading 
room. 

At first the classes met only at night, so that appren- 
tices and other people who were obliged to work all 
day might have an opportunity to be instructed, but 
day classes were afterward organized. The expense 
proved greater than had been expected ; the rentals and 
endowments were insufficient to meet them, but the 
founder made up the deficiency. When new arts and 
sciences, among them telegraphy and photography, 
became matters of general study, the building was en- 
larged to provide more class rooms, and the purpose of 
the founder has been so steadily maintained that 
thousands of young people receive instruction every 
year, free of cost, at the Cooper Union. 

Yet this great philanthropic enterprise was planned 
and carried out by a man who began life as a very poor 
boy. His father had been a prosperous hatter in New 
York, but when his son Peter was but three years of 
age the elder Cooper moved to a country town, became 
a merchant, and sold largely on credit, so, to use the 
words of his distinguished son, "He soon found all his 



PETER COOPER 



135 




'■% 



Peter Cooper. 

property was in the hands of other people and he was 
unable to get any of it back." He returned to New 
York and to the hatter's trade, and Peter was obliged 



136 POOR BOYS" CHANCES. 

to assist at the work while still so young that his head 
scarcely reached the ton of a table. 

The family reverses had already taught the boy the 
importance of carefully guarding whatever property 
he possessed, and the earliest incident he could recall, 
in his adult days, showed that he took the lesson to 
heart. He and several other boys were one day "play- 
ing store" and rubbing brown mortar, which they pre- 
tended was snuff, from between the bricks of a house, 
when some larger boys descended upon them ; his com- 
panions dropped their "snuff" and ran away ; little 
Peter stood his ground and after the alarm ended his 
snuff was still in his hand. 

His father, again changing his business, became a 
brewer, and Peter worked with him. Then his father 
tried brick-making and Peter worked in the brick-yard. 
Again his father became a hatter and still later a brewer 
once more, with his son for assistant, so the boy had 
no time in which to go to school. Thousands of boys 
now work in hat-factories and breweries and brick- 
yards, but law and custom restricts their working day 
to ten hours ; a hundred years ago the working day in 
summer lasted from sunrise to sunset and in winter 
from dawn to dusk. 

The family still remained poor, so at the age of 
seventeen Peter was apprenticed to a carriage-maker. 
Apprentices' hours were long, as has been explained 
already, so it was not strange that the boys liked to 
spend their evenings at sport and carousing. Peter, 
however, endeavored to improve his mind ; he also 
worked overtime so that he might earn some money 
for himself, and he became "better than his business," 
for while still an apprentice he devised a machine for 
mortising the spoke-holes in carriage-hubs. When he 




137 



138 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

came of age his employer, perhaps in remembrance of 
tne mortising-machine, offered him a shop of his own, 
and material and tools, with which to begin business 
for himself. Here was a great chance, but Peter de- 
clined it because it would place him in debt ; he had 
seen enough, in his father's family, of the unexpected 
troubles that debt may bring to a well-meaning man. 

So, up to the age of twenty-one, his only apparent 
chance had been to learn to work. He had absolutely 
no education but what he had "picked up ;" he knew 
one trade, as well as somethmg about several others, 
but none seemed attractive to him, for he never again 
worked at any of them. Yet he really had enjoyed 
some chances — common ones, it is true, but they were 
the only ones within reach. One was to cultivate 
greater interest in tools than his daily work required ; 
this afterward enabled him to "turn his hand to any- 
thing" and make it earn money in unexpected ways, 
while his old companions knew their own trade and 
nothing more. He had also improved his one chance 
to learn that there is no profit in risking money on the 
possibilities of luck, for one day, v/hile still an appren- 
tice, he invested all his hard-earned savings in lottery 
tickets without winning a single dollar ; he never again 
"took chances" in anything. 

After becoming his own master he first worked at 
shearing cloth; the war of 1812 had begun, cloth could 
not be imported from England, so the few American 
mills were very busy. "Shearing" consisted in clipping 
the long "fuzz" which covered the surface of woollen 
cloth as it came from the loom. Young Cooper earned 
good wages with his scissors, but one day it occurred 
to him that the work might be done faster, so he de- 
vised a machine which sheared the cloth rapidly. He 



PETER COOPER, 139 

soon became manufacturer as well as inventor, for he 
made and sold shearino- machines and seemed on the 
high road to wealth, but when one day he visited his 
parents, with five hundred dollars in his pocket, he 
found his father in great financial distress because of 
debt, so he applied his five hundred dollars to his 
father's bills and assumed the remaining debts, all of 
which he paid. 

Soon afterward the war ended and the American 
cloth business quickly languished, English cloths being 
preferred to those made in this country, so Cooper made 
haste to change his business, instead of "hanging on" 
until ruined, as is the custom of men of a single trade. 




The First Atlantic Cable. 

His command of tools enabled him to become a cabi- 
net-maker, turniture being more in demand than car- 
riages. Apparently wishing to deal in something still 
more necessary to a great number of people, he became 
a grocer, and remained at the business three years. 

After he had become a millionaire he often told 
young men, by way of suggestion, that from the time 
he came of age he never failed to lay aside at least one 
dollar of each day's earnings, and to these savings he 
owed his fortune. Good chances were many, as they 
still are, for men who have saved money. Any boy 
may hear able rqen tell of the business chances they 
would improve — if they had a little money; if the boy 



140 



POOR BOYS" CHANCES. 





will keep the matter in mind he will 
see that the same chances are im- 
proved by other men, perhaps 
rather stupid ones, who have saved 
their earnings instead of spending 
them as fast as possible. One day 
Cooper heard of a glue factory 
that was for sale at a bargain ; he 
bought it, made it the best of its 
kind in the United States and kept 
it so to the end of his days. 

The more he earned, the more he 
saved ; in the course of time he 
able to buv a 



was 



large tract of 



The Second Atlantic 
Cable. 



land in the city of Baltimore, where 
he erected an iron mill. At that 
time the construction of the Balti- 
more and Ohio railway — the first 
t :iterprise of its kind in the United 
St-^.te. had begun, but the hilly na- 
ture of part of the route compelled 
so many inclines and sharp curves 
that no locomotive seemed equal 
to the work ; the locomotives were 
to come from England, wdiere all 
railways were straight and level. 
The stockholders of the company 
were discouraged, but Cooper told 
them to keep up their hearts for a 
few weeks ; then he devised and 
built the first American locomotive, 
and it answered the purpose. Yet 
he was not an educated machinist, 
much less an engine-builder ; he 



PETER COOPER. 



141 



was merely a wide-awake man who had improved 
all his chances to study the steam-engine and 
other machinery and to put his knowledge to 
practical use whenever occasion demanded ; on the 
Baltimore occasion his knowledge saved the corn- 




Laying a Cable at Sea. 



pany trom liankruptcy and ultimately put many 
thousands of dollars into his own pocket! 

A man who devises anything new is generally called 
an inventor, but Cooper declined this title. He was 
an adapter; he merely applied existing principles and 



142 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

means to new uses. The same may be said of almost 
all so-called inventors ; they are not of the class that 
dreams of devising somethnig entirely new and origi- 
nal ; they simply improve and adapt processes that are 
known to hundreds of thousands of men who are too 
indolent or careless to study the possibilities of what 
they already know. 

Peter Cooper was now a capitalist, and in demand 
wherever new enterprises required managers with keen 
insight. He was one of the first to forsee the great 
possibilities of telegraphy, aside from the important 
fact that the greater the number of telegraph lines the 
greater would be the output of the wire-mills which 
he owned. With several other men of large means he 
pushed a telegraph line into and through Eastern Can- 
ada and by cable across the Gulf of St. Lawrence to 
Newfoundland. 

This Canadian line was devised as the land connec- 
tion of a telegraph cable to cross the Atlantic Ocean. 
The projectors supposed that the American people 
would become familiar with the idea, regard it favor- 
ably and subscribe for stock of the cable company. 
But the plan was so new and startling as to frighten 
men who had money to invest, and Mr. Cooper and his, 
associates could not spare from their other business 
interests the half-million dollars which the cable alone 
would cost. Cyrus W. Field, who was one of the mem- 
bers of the company went over to England, where there 
was already profound respect for American ingenuity, 
and he persuaded capitalists to subscribe the necessary 
money ; the cable was laid, but after a few messages 
had been transmitted it became inoperative, and as it 
was in the bottom of the ocean it could not be over- 



PETER COOPER 



143 



hauled and examined except at an outlay almost great 
enough to provide a new cable. 

Mr. Cooper and his associates had literally "sunk" a 
large sum of money, but they were not of the kind that 




Cooper Union, New York. 

gives up. They had proved that messages could be 
transmitted through an ocean cable, so again they tried, 
and still a third time ; success then crowned their efforts 
and in time added greatly to their wealth, but Mr. 
Cooper's greater gratification came of the conscious- 



144 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

ness that he had been instrumentai in making ocean 
telegraphy practicable and showing a means by which 
all parts of the civilized world might be brought into 
quick communication with one another, for business- 
like and thrifty though he was, he was always at heart 
a philanthropist and determined to do all in his power 
to increase the intelligence, comfort, prosperity and 
general good of the human race. He gave money freely 
to all charitable and philanthropic organizations and 
took active part in the management of many of them. 

Before he had reached middle-age he was rich 
enough to gratify any and all human desires for com- 
fort and luxury, for he was one of the few millionaires 
of the time, but he never forgot the class from which 
he sprang and that "poor humanity" needs and desires 
a helping hand, wdiereby it may be enabled to help 
itself. To struggling inventors he was especially 
friendly ; any of them who had devised something prac- 
tical could depend upon Peter Cooper's counsel and 
check-book. 

Education, however, was the subject to which he 
gave the most attention. He was a working member 
of New York's school board, and as soon as his means 
would allow he planned and built the Cooper Union 
already described. The many losses of the several 
insurance companies of which he was a stock-holder 
made him determine that the new building should be 
fire-proof; this made it necessary to avoid the use of 
wooden beams and columns, so he devised and rolled, 
in his own mills, the first "structural iron" ever made 
in the United States, and thus became the deviser of 
the method by which all fire-proof buildings and very 
large business edifices are now constructed. 

Again it is necessary to remind the reader that his 



HORACE MANN. 145 

great and beneficent activities were the result of the ex- 
periences of his boyhood. These gave him his only 
chances ; — the chance to learn to work, to fear debt, 
to save money instead of spending it for temporary 
gratification ; the chance to use tools and to learn to 
adapt them to different kinds of work, and to study 
whatever he saw, instead of merely looking at it. 
Thousands of other New York boys had the same 
chances, but chances never compel l3oys. Successful 
men are developed only from boys who make the full- 
est possible use of their chances. 



HORACE MANN. 
Born May 4th, 1796; Died August 2nd, 1859. 

Horace Mann deserves a warm place in the heart of 
the American boy, for no other man ever did so much as 
he to improve the means of free education in the United 
States and for the abolition of flogging as a schoolroom 
punishment. His efforts to reform the public school 
system began in Massachusetts, his native State, but long 
before he died some or all of his methods had been 
adopted in almost every State and had excited the in- 
terest of school authorities and parents even in England. 

He was born on a small farm and his parents were very 
poor. A hundred years ago no Massachusetts farmer 
could expect to be rich, no matter how large his estate ; 
the occupants of a small farm had to work very hard and 
do much contriving, for Massachusetts soil was stony 
and markets were few. There were but few towns in 



146 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

which farm products could be sold for cash, so the farmer 
planned to supply his own table from his land ; his tiour 
and meal were made from his own wheat and corn, he 
raised flax and sheep, to provide Hnen and wool with 
which to clothe his family, and he "put down" his 
winter's stock of pork and beef. On a New England farm, 
no matter how small, there was always work enough to 
busy every member of the family who was old enough to 
do anything. 

Horace Mann could never recall a time in his youth 
when he did not have to work very hard. He was of 
cheerful, uncomplaining disposition, but here is a passage 
from a letter written by him when he was in the prime of 
life: — "The poverty of my parents subjected me to con- 
tinual privation. I believe in the rugged nursing of toil, 
but she nursed me too much. In the winter I was em- 
ployed in indoor and sedentary occupations, which con- 
fined me too strictly, and in summer, when I could work 
on the farm, the labor was too severe and often en- 
croached upon the hours of sleep. Even my play-days — 
not play-days, for I never had any — but my play-hours, 
were earned by extra exertion, finishing tasks early, to 
gain a little leisure for boyish sports." 

He came of intelligent, aspiring stock, and longed to 
improve his mind by study, but until his fifteenth year he 
dicl not go to school more than eight or ten weeks in any 
one year. Of his teachers he wrote, "They were very 
good men but very poor teachers ;" it is said also that his 
native town (Franklin) had the smallest school district, 
the poorest school-house and the poorest-paid teachers 
in the state. Only elementary branches were taught, 
and but few of these. The methods of teaching were de- 
fective ; Mann said of it, ''Of all our faculties, the 
memory for words was the only one specially appealed 



HORACE MANN. 



147 




Horace Mann. 

to •" Still the same mi^ht have been said of the custom in 
public schools of all grades. Text books were not pro- 



148 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

vided tree of cost, as they now are in most public schools, 
and Httle Horace Mann braided straw to earn money 
with which to buy the few books he needed. 

When he was thirteen years of age he lost his father, 
wdiich compelled him to work still harder, if that were 
possible. But his educational facilities were not confined 
to his school books, for the great Benjamin Franklin had 
given the town, which had been named for him, a small 
library consisting principally of historical and theological 
works, and the boy absorbed the contents of some of 
them. 

When he reached his twentieth year there came to 
Franklin just the sort of teacher Horace needed — a man 
ignorant of many books, and even of the multiplication 
table, yet a prodigy in Latin and Greek. Young Mann 
had longed to go to college ; now was his opportunity for 
preparation. He went at his books so earnestly, under 
the guidance of the new teacher, that in six months he 
entered Brown University, in Rhode Island. In three 
years he graduated and obtained a tutor's position in the 
college, but two years later, when he had earned money 
to repay the debts incurred while at college, he entered a 
law school, and at the age of twenty-seven he was ad- 
mitted to practice. 

He soon became a successful lawyer, for beside being 
intellectually able he was so honest that in no case would 
he take the side which he regarded as the wrong one. 
There still are some pecuHar theories among lawyers on 
this subject; "The greater the criminal, the greater his 
need of a defender," is one of them; another is "Every 
rascal deserves the best chance he can get," so not a few 
of the most successful lawyers earn their livelihood bv 
keeping scoundrels out of jail and off of the gallows. 
Mann's course made him laughed at, for a while, but 




1 Q Poor Soys 



150 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

quickly it was noted that he won most of his cases, so 
great was the effect of his personal character and pro- 
fessional principle upon judges and juries. 

But the memory of his few and dismal schooldays re- 
mained vivid ; he believed that education was the most 
neglected need of the youth of the state, and he spent 
much time in planning better methods for the common 
schools. At the age of thirty-one he was elected to the 
Massachusetts legislature and at once began to embody 
his theories in the laws of the state ; he also interested 
himself in other plans for improving the condition of the 
weak and helpless, proposing public charities, laws for 
the suppression of lotteries, the regulation of the liquor 
traffic, and the proper care and treatment of the insane. 

When thirty-seven years of age he removed to Boston, 
where he soon acquired a large legal practice and was 
elected to the State Senate, where he remained four 
years ; during most of this period he was the Senate's 
presiding officer. In 1837 he called a meeting at his own 
house to consider a general reform of the Massachusetts 
school system. By this time he had studied the subject so 
long and thoroughly that his plans were approved, not 
only at the meeting but by the legislature. A state 
board of education was created, and Mann was made its 
secretary, the position being really that of general and 
sole executive. The salary of the office was only one 
thousand dollars a year, but he immediately left the 
Senate, abandoned his large and profitable legal practice, 
and for eleven years gave his entire time and thought to 
the improvement of the schools. He devised reform 
measures in rapid succession ; each and all required legis- 
lative sanction, but so high was his reputation and so 
convincing his reasoning that his requests were seldom 
denied. He established the first schools in which the art 



HORACE MANN. 151 

of teaching was imparted at public expense ; he founded 
county conventions in which teachers met to discuss 
their work with one another, he increased the length of 
school terms and the number of studies, adding 
georgrapy, history, composition and natural science to 
"the three R's — readin', 'ritin', and Vithmetic," which had 
previously been the entire Hst, and, more important than 
all, he insisted that the methods of teaching should be 
such as to train the perceptive and reasoning powers as 
well as the memory. 

But to accomplish all this, even in Massachusetts, 
supposedly the most intellectual state in the Union, 
required hard work as well as able thinking. Of his 
eleven years of service as Secretary of the Board of 
Education Mann wrote, "I labored in this cause an 
average of fifteen hours a day ; from the beginning to 
the end of this period I never took a single day for 
relaxation, and months and months together passed 
without my withdrawing a single evening to call upon 
a friend." After five years of effort, in which he did all 
that his observation and experience could suggest, he 
went to Europe, at his own expense, to look for better 
methods and appliances, if any could be found ; his re- 
port of this trip was so interesting and instructive that 
it was reprinted by the school authorities of other states 
and several editions of it appeared in England. What- 
ever he knew or thought of common school education 
was at the service of the world ; he lectured often on the 
subject, and wrote thousands of letters in answer to in- 
quiries ; he published a periodical — "The Common 
School Journal," for the information of teachers and 
school officers, and he designed many school-houses. 
The schools throughout the Union felt the results of 
his work in Massachusetts, for his annual '"Reports" — 



152 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



large printed volumes, each describing a year's work 
and its results and abounding in suggestion, were wide- 
ly read in all the states. 
The possibilities of educa- 
tion as described in one of 
these reports moved the 
Edinburg Review, a high 
British critical authority, 
to say, "This volume is 
indeed a noble monument 
of a civilized people, and if 
America were sunk be- 
neath the waves would re- 
main the fairest picture on 
record of an ideal common- 
wealth." 

In 1848 Massachusetts 
needed a successor in Con- 
gress to ex-President John 
Quincy Adams, who had 
died suddenly. Horace 
Mann was selected for the 
position, and at once be- 
came as active as his pre-^ 
decessor had been. His' 
opposition to the extension 
of slavery was so intense 
that Daniel Webster, 
though of the same 
political party, defeated 
him for nomination for 
a second term, but Mann, so great was his popularity, 
w^as elected on an independent ticket. In 1852 he was 
chosen President of Antioch College, in Ohio, to the 




Horace Mann's Monument 



"COMMODORE" VANDERBILT. 153 

great benefit of the colleg-e. So much liked was he 
everywhere that he was charged with but a single fault 
— he worked too hard. Undoubtedly his extreme in- 
dustry shortened his life, yet few longer lives had been 
so useful or had results so lasting. 

The inscription upon the monument erected to his 
memory upon the college "campus" was taken from one 
of his last addresses : — "Be ashamed to die until you have 
achieved some victory for humanity." 

It would be difficult to select an incident of his life 
that resembled "a great chance," unless it was his will- 
ingness to give up a valuable legal practice and accept 
a thousand dollars ner vear, merely that he might make 
schools more endurable and beneficial. 



"COMMODORE" VANDERBILT. 
Born May 27TH, 1794; Died January 4TH, 1877. 

Boys who dislike the school-room and its tasks will 
be delighted to learn that Cornelius Vanderbilt, the 
subject of this sketch, had no taste for book-learning 
and that he never went to school when he could avoid 
it. His father was a poor farmer on Staten Island, in 
New York harbor, and Cornelius, who liked to sail 
boats, learned while still a boy to convey his father's 
farm products to the city, about ten miles distant. 

At the age of sixteen Cornelius became the owner of 
a sailboat in which he ferried passengers and produce 
between Staten Island and New York. The business 



154 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

was not a great one, for Staten Island was sparsely 
populated, and a boat under sail could seldom make 
more than two "round trips" in a day. Yet tradition 
says there was business enough for more than one 
small boat, and that when an opposition line entered 
the field young Vanderbilt discouraged it by lowering 
his prices ; after he had driven it out of business he put 
on an extra boat himself. At the age of eighteen he 
was owner of two boats, but he found profit in serving 
as master of a third and larger craft. 

In those slow old times it was the custom for ferry 
service to end at sunset, or as soon thereafter as the 
boat could reach its landing. But the War of 1812-1815 
was in progress, the forts in New York harbor required 
much transportation of men and material, the govern- 
ment had no transports, so young V^anderbilt took the 
contract and earned quite a lot of money, though he did 
all of his government work between dark and daylight. 
Sailors, like other men, differ greatly from one another ; 
Vanderbilt always got his boats through on time, so 
he was able to get mucn other work in New York and 
the tw^o rivers which flank the city. Robert Fulton had 
already proved that steam navigation was practicable, 
but most of the river and harbor transportation con- 
tinued to be done by small sailing vessels. 

It has already been said that young Vanderbilt did 
not like school and books, but this does not imply that 
he did not study. He was so successful with his small 
craft that before he came of age he had earned several 
thousand dollars, which he dutifully gave to his mother. 
So great a degree of success would have turned the 
heads of most boys. Yet Vanderbilt began to study as 
hard as if he were at school. The subject of this study 
was the steamboat. Hundreds of old sailors sneered at 



'COMMODORE" VANDERBILT. 



155 



/. 




"Commodore" Cornelius Yanderbilt. 

the "tea-kettle" plan of propelling boats, but the young 
Staten Island ferryman, who had been in hundreds of 
hard tussles with wind and tide, could not help seeing 
that steamboats made their trips on fairly regular time 



156 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



despite the contrary ways of water and weather. He 
studied the construction and working of the new boats 
with all his might ; he was already a good pilot, so 
when a steamboat began to ply between New York 
and New Brunswick, N. J., he accepted command of 
it and he remained in the company's service twelve 
years. At the end of this period the company had three 
boats in service and Vanderbilt knew all about their 




"He was Successful with his Small Craft." 

construction, capacity, possibilities, etc., for he had 
become one of the stockholders and finally the sole 
owner of the line. 

In 1827 he leased the ferry from New York to Eliza- 
beth, N. J., and by giving it better boats he made this 
ferry the favorite water-route to the railway lines which 
connected New York with Philadelphia; the rails had 
not yet reached New York. 



158 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

In 1829 he acquired larger steamboat interests and 
began to compete with the companies which had es- 
tablished passenger and freight lines on the Hudson 
River and Long Island Sound. These companies were 
wealthy, but Vanderbilt made his way and made 
money ; some people called him lucky ; he attributed 
his success to good boats but more to good manage- 
ment, for he was his own superintendent and exercised 
personal supervision of all his business, while the com- 
panies' work was managed by hired superintendents. 

By 1836, when he was forty years of age, Vander- 
bilt was worth half a million dollars and owned so 
many boats that men began to call him "Commodore." 
His business and wealth increased so rapidly that when 
the California "gold fever" began, in 1849, ^^^ was able 
to take an active part in the transportation of the many 
thousands of gold-seekers. Every boy who reads the 
newspapers knows that an interoceanic canal has been 
projected by way of the San Juan River and Lake 
Nicaragua, this being the shortest possible water-line 
between the Atlantic coast and our seaports on the 
Pacific. Fifty years ago Vanderbilt selected this same 
route for his California line ; he ran steamers to San 
Juan River, and on Lake Nicaragua, and had another 
line of steamers on the Pacific coast ; this route was al- 
most a thousand miles shorter than that by the Isthmus 
of Panama — a great saving of distance and time, in the 
days of slow steamships. Still more important, to men 
who valued their lives, the would-be miners who took 
the Nicaragua route avoided the deadly "Chagres 
fever" which killed many hundreds of the men who 
attempted to cross the Isthmus of Panama and en- 
feebled thousands more. 

The profits of this trade with California were enor- 



"COMMODORE" VANDERBILT. 



159 



mous and made Vanderbilt very wealthy, but in 1853 
he sold his line. The purchasers were very "sharp ;" 
assuming that the extent and nature of the property 
and the distance from New York would protect them, 
they attempted to avoid the final payment, but quicker 
than any one had supposed could be possible the Con- 
modore established a competing line, ruined the pur- 




Village on the San Juan River. 



chasers of the first one and continued in the business 
until he was believed to have earned ten million dollars 
in the California trade alone. 

But increase of wealth increased his earnestness in 
studying the posibilities of the steamship business. In 
J853 Great Britain joined France and Turkey in war oil 



160 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Russia. The principal scene of conflict was the Crimean 
Peninsula, on the Black Sea, and almost all Britain's 
merchant vessels were needed to' transport soldiers and 
war material. Quickly Vanderbilt started a steamship 
line between the United States and Europe ; there already 
was an American line, partly supported by a "subsidy" 
from the United States, for carrying the mails ; Vander- 
bilt offered to carry the mails for nothing, so the older 
line began to languish. Vanderbilt rapidly improved his 
ocean service ; it was his rule to never allow his com- 
petitors to accept lower prices or have better boats than 
he ; the last ship he built — it was named for himself, was 
the finest and fastest steamer afloat at the time. Yet 
when the Civil War began he presented the "Vanderbilt" 
to the United States, and, under his own ablest captain 
and engineers, she w^as sent to Hampton Roads to 
destroy herself if necessary, by ramming the Confederate 
iron-clad "Virginia" (or "Merrimac") should that terror 
of the Union navy endeavor to go to sea. For this 
patriotic service Mr. Vanderbilt received a vote of thanks 
and a gold medal. 

American shipping interests were greatly depressed 
by the war, for the south had two or three active cruisers 
afloat, and between them they destroyed several hundred 
merchant vessels and frightened many others into being 
transferred to foreign flags. Some wealthy ship-owners 
were ruined, but Vanderbilt had not "put all his eggs into 
one basket." Not all of steam's transportation possi- 
bilities were on the water. Vanderbilt had already been 
a large purchaser of railway stocks, but in one way his 
holdings did not satisfy him, for he was accustomed to 
absolute control of everything in which he invested. In 
eastern New York, between the Hudson and the New 
England States, was the Harlem Railroad — a short, 



'COMMODORE" VANDERBILT. 



161 



strugg-ling line, through an agricultural district, touching 
no cities and having no important connections. In 1863 
the stock of the Harlem road sold at about ten dollars 
per share. Vanderbilt began to purchase it ; so did other 
men, for it had come to be believed that whatever Van- 
derbilt touched would turn to gold. Speculation in the 
stock became active ; the market-price advanced twenty- 



r 



.> 




The Merrimac in Action. 



fold or more, and as usual in such cases, many specula- 
tors sold "short" — that is, they contracted to sell what 
they did not own. One day it was discovered that far 
more stock had been sold than existed ; worse still, for 
the "operators," Vanderbilt was almost sole owner of it, 
so all buyers and sellers had to settle with him at what- 
ever prices he chose to fix. 



im POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

As the Commodore was now in his seventieth year and 
worth at least twenty milhon dollars he would have been 
justified in retiring from business. His appearance and 
manner, however, seemed to indicate that he had only 
just reached the prime of life, for he had an erect figure, 
a clear eye, and a fine complexion. Every day he drove 
a pair of horses as spirited as any young man would have 
cared to handle; while in business his activity and skill 
appalled every one with whom he came in contact. He 
desired the Hudson River Railroad, running from New 
York to Albany and therefore the principal feeder of the 
New York Central Road, and he got control of it, after 
bringing many speculators to grief by the tactics which 
had been successful with the Harlem Hne. 

Then he reached out for the New York Central — 
a road longer than the Harlem and Hudson River roads 
combined, though it had never paid a dividend on its 
stock. To discourage him the Central's managers carried 
their freight from New York to Albany, the eastern ter- 
minus of the road, by steamboats instead of on Vander- 
bilt's road ; the old man retaliated by refusing to take any 
freight from the Central at Albany. Dow^n went Central 
stock, and Vanderbilt improved the opportunity to buy 
much of it. Before long he secured control and double4 
the amount of stock ; there was a great outcry at this 
''watering," as it was called, yet so greatly did he im- 
prove the track and equipment that soon the price of 
stock became higher than it had ever been ; in time it 
doubled the best price it had brought before Vanderbilt 
got control of the road. 

Yet the old man yearned for more railroads, and for a 
practical business purpose, too. By securing control, 
successively, of the Lake Shore, Canada Southern and 




"Commodore" Vanderbilt at Home. 



i6S 



164 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Michigan Southern roads he established, under his own 
management, a "trunk Hue," the first of its kind, from 
New York to Chicago. This was an object-lesson which 
other railway magnates were quick to learn, to their own 
profit and to the benefit of travelers and shippers, for 
railway consolidation had always lowered rates while in- 
creasing speed and general efficiency. 

At the time of his death Mr. Vanderbilt was undoubt- 
edly the richest man in America ; his railway securities 
alone, valued at par, though all were quoted above par in 
the stock market, exceeding $75,000,000,50 it is plain that 
though he had never given any attention to books he had 
always been a very close, intelligent student. He himself 
attributed much of his success to a dififerent mental 
habit ; to use his own words, "I never tell what I am 
going to do until I have done it" — a statement worth 
remembering by boys who wish to succeed. 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 

Born February i2th. 1809; Died April 15TH, 1865. 

No boy who became a famous man had fewer chances 
than Abraham Lincoln, the best-known and most loved 
of all our presidents after Washington. He was born 
of poor parents in a poor county of the state of Ken- 
tucky. Although Kentucky was the first state admitted 
to the Union by the original thirteen and had at the 
time of Lincoln's birth four hundred thousand inhabi- 
tants, it would have seemed unspeakably "slow" to a 
modern boy. Its principal industry was farming, at 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 



165 




Abraham Lincoln in 1865. 

which any one might have a chance, if he liked, for 
land was abundant, rich and cheap and any one who 
would work a few acres of it could be sure of raising 

2 J Poor Boys 



166 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

enough to eat, as well as a little surplus to sell. Still, 
aspiring boys never regard farming as one of the op- 
portunities by which men rise to fame. 

Kentucky offered little chance to any one through 
the mechanic arts, for when Lincoln was a boy there 
were no great mills with improved machinery, such as 
now yield thousands of profitable suggestions to boys 
with skilled hands, observing eyes and thoughtful 
heads. In Kentucky or any other new western state 
a mechanic had to be his own and only ''boss" and 
helper ; his own arms were his power supply, and there 
was so little for him to do that unless he knew two or 
three trades he was not sure of a livelihood. A black- 
smith would always be horse-shoer, and also gunsmith 
and tool-maker ; shoemaking- and harness-making were 
often done by one man. 

Lincoln's father was a carpenter and cabinet-maker, 
but could not get enough work to support his family 
comfortably, for fully half the people in the state lived 
in one-room houses built of logs by their owners, and 
new-comers followed their example. The windows of 
most of these houses were square holes sawn through 
the walls and covered with oiled linen, cotton or paper 
to let in light and keep out the wind, the floors were 
often of earth, and the owners had so few household 
effects that a cabinet-maker's services were seldom 
required. 

Worse still, for Kentucky carpenters and cabinet- 
makers, nails cost about half a dollar a pound at that 
time, and not one settler in ten had the money Avith 
which to buy them or to hire a carpenter. So Lincoln's 
father was very poor; carpenter and cabinet-maker 
though he was, his own house had a **dirt" floor and the 
beds were made by arranging poles and cross-poles 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



167 



on forked sticks driven into the ground and the tables 
were hewn slabs supported by stakes. 

When a boy sees no chances for himself in following 
his father's trade he can hope at least to profit by his 
father's stock of knowledge. But Thomas Lincoln, the 
father of Abraham, seems to have known very little. 
Ignorance was not disgraceful at that time and place, 
for there were no public schools nor even a book store 
in the Kentucky ^^^^ 

backwoods, - — ^^ 

where Thomas 
was born and 
reared. Possibly 
he could read by 
the time he be- 
came a man, but 
it is known that 
he could not write 
his name unti 
taught by his 
wife. The same 
can be said of a 
man in the 
neighboring state 
of Tennessee who 
afterward became, not the father of a President 
but himself the President who succeeded Lincoln. His 
name was Andrew Johnson, and there was this impor- 
tant difference between him and the elder Lincoln; 
Johnson evidently believed "Better late than never." 

Another opportunity which almost all American 
boys now enjoy, no matter how poor they may be — that 
of getting a common school education, was denied 




Birthplace of Lincoln. 



188 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Lincoln, for schools were scarce and poor, school terms 
were short and text-books expensive, so Abraham 
Lincoln's entire school attendance, when he reached 
his twenty-first year, had not equalled a single year of 
time. 

The chances of a poor boy who hoped to become suc- 
cessful were few enough and bad enough in Kentucky 
eight3^-five years ago, but when Lincoln was seven 
years of age his father moved to Indiana, which had 
just been admitted to the Union but was only about 
one-forth as populous and advanced as Kentucky. Here 
the younger Lincoln got the first chance that was to 
make him great, and quite probable he did not appre- 
ciate it, for it was the chance, born of stern necessity, of 
learning to work. When he became great he attached 
much importance to this opportunity so unanimously 
detested by boys, and frequently by men, and in his 
selection of men for important military and other 
duties he always preferred those who had learned the 
art of hard, steady work when they were young. This 
did not mean that Lincoln loved work for its own sake ; 
he was overgrown, badly fed, like most children in new 
settlements, and if he was not also weakened by ma- 
laria he was an exception to the general rule of pioneer 
life in the Ohio valley. Quite possibly he hated work 
as earnestly as the laziest boy alive, but the important 
fact remains that he developed the quality of sticking 
to his work for the sake of what it was to bring him. 

Yet splendid chances, such as most boys believe used 
to come in the boyhood of great men, continued to 
dodge little Abe with engaging persistency. Some 
boys would not have grumbled at such luck, in the cir- 
cumstances, for southern Indiana abounded in game 
and fish, schools were very few; SQ a boy might go 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 169 

hunting and fishing as often as he liked without having 
to play truant and pay the penalty. 

But little Abe was conscious of a desire to amount 
to something, so he did not wait for good chances to 
come his way; he took such as were within reach, no 




Lincoln's Early Home. 

matter how small they were, and made the best of 
them. When only twelve years of age he was some- 
times kept from school to be "hired out," so ably could 
he use axe and hoe, so most of his studying, then, as 
well_ as in later years, was done bv poring over books 
at night and in the odd hours and moments which boys 



170 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

with more and better chances would have thought not 
long enough for any serious effort. Really, his only 
"streak of luck" was the possession of a mother (step- 
mother) who wanted him to succeed and who tried to 
provide books and opportunities for study, but what 
a nuisance that sort of mother would be to some 
millions of American boys ! 

Nowadays the boy who wishes to study has many 
facilities within reach, even if he cannot go to school, 
for there is no part of the United States where text- 
books and other books cannot be borrowed, if the 
would-be student cannot afford to buy. But in Lincoln's 
day there were thousands of respectable American 
families that did not own a book of any kind. Lincoln 
read whatever he could borrow, but he always longed 
for something more and better. One of his educational 
chances that did much to shape his public life was the 
borrowing and mastering of a book so unpopular with 
modern boys that no one who values the friendship of 
a boy would offer to lend him a copy of it. It was a 
"History of the United States," yet no book did more 
toward making Lincoln a model patriot and statesman, 
for he read and re-read it until its contents were firmly 
fixed in his mind ; he thought of them in his leisure 
hours for years, and he never lost an opportunity to 
get new light upon them. 

Another educational chance of which he thought so 
highly that once a week, when he was only fourteen 
years old, he walked to the nearest town to enjoy it. 
was a weekly newspaper. He wanted to know what 
was going on in his country and all other countries — 
wanted it at an age when "what's going on in town" is 
as much as boys in general care to know. Those were 
the days of small newspapers ; there was not in the 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 171 

United States a single daily, nor did any weekly have 
more than four pages ; all of them, according to modern 
editorial authorities, were ''edited with a pitchfork;" 
that is, without any attempt at style, or to get down 
to the supposed level of the largest number of possible 
buyers. Much of their contents was of very solid and 
heavy character, but that was just the sort or reading 
matter for which young Lincoln longed, and when in 
early manhood he chanced to meet college graduates 
and men who had travelled in Europe he knew quite as 
much of the great world and its doings as any of them 
and more than most of them. 

Aspiring boys of the present day, no matter how poor 
they may be, have almost endless opportunities of 
learning if they will keep their eyes open and their 
wits at work, for railroads, of which the United States 
have far more than all the European nations combined, 
have put the various portions of our land in touch with 
one another, and everything new makes its way quickly 
to all settled portions of the country, but in Lincoln's 
day the boy who wished to contemplate something be- 
sides his daily work had to fall back upon human na- 
ture. Young Lincoln studied men — not always the 
kind that would have interested him most, but those 
whom he saw most frequently. This was and still is 
the principal study of the wisest heads in all new coun- 
tries ; out West they call it "Sizing men up," and men 
who succeed at it are in a fair way to succeed at any- 
thing else they undertake, no matter what their disad- 
vantages, if they have ordinary energy and persistency.. 
Wherever men congregated young Abe was to be 
found ; at the store, post-office, mill, fair, horse-race, 
political meeting, he was a keen looker-on and listener. 
While still a boy he lost no chance to "attend court/' 



172 POOR BOYS" CHANCES. 

Far-western court huuses were seldom more than log- 
cabins, provided with no seats except for the judge,, 
jury and prisoner, so spectators had to choose between 
leaning against the walls and sitting on their heels, 
but in this rough school Lincoln took many of his most 
important lessons in logic and oratory, and did it so 
well that long before he came of age he won respectful 
listeners to his arguments and "stump" speeches on 
whatever chanced to interest him. 

The study of men led young Lincoln to devising 
ways of getting along with men, so while still a boy he 
learned to control his temper, be good-natured, talk 
much yet keep a guard on his tongue, and be always 
ready and willing to give a cheerful word and a helping 
hand. He learned early in life that "Honesty is the 
best policy," and lived up to his knowledge so well 
that he earned his nickname of "Honest Abe" before he 
became a man and despite a long series of temptations 
he never lost it. 

Just as he was coming of age his father moved to 
the newer state of Illinois, only half as populous as 
Indiana, and the family and its most promising member 
had to begin life anew. Lincoln's father was still ab- 
jectly poor; Abe was possessor of thirty dollars, which 
he had acquired by more work than would earn that 
sum in the poorest part of the West to-day. That 
money offered the two most brilliant of the few 
chances of his early days ; either would have been de- 
lightful to the average Western boy of that period, for 
the money would have paid for a first-class rifle or a 
three-year-old colt broken to saddle. Abe resisted both 
temptations and invested all the money in articles 
which could be sold to people who lived in the sparsely 
settled districts along the family's route of travel. He 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



173 



bought so wisely and sold so skilfully that his money 
doubled in liis hands. 

Soon after this he came of age and started in life for 
himself, and his first chance was to be one of the crew 
of a flatboat, at fifty cents per day. The boat was to be 
loaded with grain, meat and live-stock, and be floated 
down the Sangammon and Mississippi Rivers to New 
Orleans. In a single year, he was by turns a rail-split- 
ter, a clerk in a 
country store, a 
flat-boat pilot, a 
steamboat pilot 
and a captain in 
the Blackhawk 
war. While clerk 
in a country store 
he began for the 
first time to study 
grammar and 
m a t h e matics — 
studies at which 
hundreds of thou- 
sands of the boys 
of to-day are fair- 
ly started before 
they are past 




Lincoln Splitting Rails. 



their twelfth year, yet he knew 
so much of the needs of his section of the state that 
he felt justified in declaring himself a candidate 
for the legislature. He was defeated, for his party 
was greatly in the minority in his district, yet so popu- 
lar had he m'ade himself in a single year that in his own 
precinct less than twenty votes in a total of three 
hundred were cast against him. So few had been his 



174 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

opportunities, up to this time, and so many his set- 
backs, that in his address to the voters he admitted that 
in case he should not be elected he was "too familiar 
with disappointments to be very much chagrined.'' 
After his defeat he seemed unable to find steady occu- 
pation of any kind, so he worked at any odd jobs that 
were offered to his hands and head. Man though he 
was, he had never yet owned a good suit of clothes, 
and as he was by nature extremely tall and awkard, 
with a face as hollow and sad as it was homely, his 
appearance was greatly against him. 

His great chance, or so he regarded it, came to him in 
his twenty-fifth year, when he was elected to the legis- 
lature, but he had already fallen in love with a girl who 
had promised to marry another man. Soon afterward 
the girl died and Lincoln became almost if not entirely 
insane for a time. 

Such were the early years and experiences of a man 
who afterward reached the highest position of honor and 
trust in America. For thirty years after he became a 
man and his own master his good chances were almost 
none, apparently, and his disappointments and hin- 
drances were many, yet in spite of all he succeeded. He 
did not make a fortune ; even when elected to the presi- 
dency he was so poor that he had to borrow money to 
cover the expenses of moving his family to Washington, 
but his name and reputation became known and honored 
throughout the civilized world, and they will be remem- 
bered long after all earth's millionaires shall have been 
forgotten. His one and only great streak of luck was, 
and is, within the reach of ail other boys in the United 
States and the world ; it was a determination to amount 
to something in the world, no matter how hard he had 



ABRAHAM LINCOLiSr. 



m 



to work for it nor how long he might have to wait. He 
never was helped on his way by an easy job or a rich 
friend, such as boys always find in story-books. His 
early efforts at self-improvement were distrusted and dis- 
couraged even by his own father. No boy who studies 
the life of Abraham Lincoln can afterward have any 
excuse for saying that success in life depends upon great 
chances at the start, and "good luck" afterward. 

In the several 
years that fol- 
lowed his coming 
of age Lincoln 
kept store, split 
rails and did 
other farm work 
as a hired man ; 
he also studied 
law and survey- 
ing. The store 
involved him in 
debts which he 
was unable to 
pay in full until 
fifteen years later. 
In 1834, he being 
twenty-five years of age, he was elected to the legislature, 
but was so poor that he had to borrow the price of a de- 
cent suit of clothes. In 1836 he was again elected, and 
in 1837 he formally "put himself on record" against 
slavery. About that time Springfield became the State 
capital, so Lincoln went there to live and it was in 
Springfield that he was admitted to the bar, at the age of 
twenty-eight years. He found town life dull (Spring- 




Lincoln's Law Office. 



176 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

field's population was a little more than one thousand,) 
yet he felt so awkward in the presence of town people 
that he remained away from church because, he said, '"I 
am conscious I should not know how to behave myself." 
He had suffered a succession of disappointments in love 
and his heart was as doleful as his face, but private 
troubles did not keep him from his public duties and he 
became prominent in State politics. 

In 1842 he married a lady who believed that he would 
in time become president. He already aspired to Con- 
gress. In 1844 he "stumped the State" for Henry Ciay, 
the Whig nominee for the presidency and in 1846, when 
thirty-seven years of age, Lincoln was elected to Con- 
gress ; he was the only Whig among the Illinois mem- 
bers. His Democratic opponent was the Rev. Peter 
Cartright, a Methodist preacher of character about as 
unique as Lincoln himself and who had the treble "pull" 
of being a Jackson Democrat, the most popular man in 
Illinois and a natural orator of almost phenomenal 
power. 

From that day many Illinoisans believed that Lincoln 
would yet be president of the United States, for in their 
opinion a man who could defeat Peter Cartright could 
do anything. The special qualifications of Cartright and 
Lincoln, as public speakers, were exactly alike in two im- 
portant parti-culars ; both men sprang from the common 
people, understood them well and loved them dearly and 
neither ever said anything which he did not fully believe. 

Wliile a most serious and often unhappy man, for 
reasons too numerous and complicated to be detailed 
here, Lincoln always abounded in humor, which is very 
dififerent from mere fun. He quickly gave Congress a 
taste of this quality, for when President Polk said in one 
of his messages preparatory to the Mexican War that 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



177 



Mexico had invaded our territory and shed the blood of 
American cititzens, Lincoln gravely introduced a resolu- 
tion asking the president to name the "exact spot" on 
which this bloodshed occurred. This resolution turned 
much Whig laughter upon the president and brought 
Lincoln into prominence. 




Lincoln's Eesidence at Springfield, Illinois. 



He opposed the Mexican War, because he believed it 
wrong ; this opposition lost him many political friends in 
Illinois, for the American armies prevailed, and a suc- 
cessful war is always popular. As he had agreed to re- 
tire at the end of his Congressional term, to make place 



178 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

for a friend, he could not stand for re-election. His 
political career seemed closed when he returned to 
Springfield, so he began to work hard at his legal prac- 
tice, which soon added to his reputation, for he never 
dropped his honesty while taking up a case. He became 
more widely known, for he "rode the circuit" — that is, he 
followed the judge of a large judicial district to all towns 
in which court was opened, and he practiced in all of 
them. 

But he never let national politics escape from his mind. 
Slavery had now become the dominant topic of Congress 
and the political press. The south demanded that slavery 
should be permitted in the territories and new States ; a 
large faction at the north opposed this demand. Efforts 
were made to adjust conflicting opinions by compro- 
mises, but none of these remained permanent. Lincoln 
aspired to the Senate but was defeated in 1856, through 
his known abhorrence of slavery. He joined the Repub- 
lican party, which was organized to oppose the extension 
of slavery — not to destroy it ; the latter was the pur- 
pose of the Abolitionists, most of whom "flocked by 
themselves" and abused Democrats, Whigs and Repub- 
licans alike. It is commonly supposed that Lincoln was 
"an unknown man" until he was nominated for the presi- 
dency, but in the Republican Convention of 1856 he was 
named for the vice-presidency and received more than a 
hundred of the convention's votes, which shows that he 
had impressed the delegates favorably. 

The senior Senator from Illinois was Stephen A. 
Douglas, author of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, which em- 
bodied the principle that a territory on becoming a State 
should determine for itself whether slavery should exist 
within its borders. Lincoln tried to win Douglas's seat, 
and in 1858, a few months before the legislature was tQ 




Abraham Lincoln in 1858. 



179 



180 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

select a senator, he astonished the State and frightened 
his friends by challenging Douglas to a series of joint 
debates at various places in Illinois. Douglas accepted 
the challenge, and the whole nation heard the speeches, 
in effect, for telegraphy and railroads enabled all the 
large newspapers to print long reports. Douglas was a 
skilled politician and an Illinois favorite ; he retained the 
Senatorship, for both branches of the Illinois Legislature 
were controlled by the Democrats, but the debates made 
Lincoln known throughout the north as the ablest of all 
the opponents of the extension of slavery, for, as James 
G. Blaine afterwards said, "Lincoln did not seek to say 
merely the thin^- that was for the day's debate, but the 
thing that would stand the test of time and square itself 
with eternal justice." The same might be said truthfully 
of all his political speeches and papers. 

The debate also made Lincoln, in the minds of most 
Western men, the next Presidential nominee of the Re- 
publican party, for it was supposed to be beyond doubt 
that the Democrats would nominate Douglas. Early in 
i860 the awkward Westerner astonished Eastern men 
with a powerful political address, deHvered in New York. 
He was now an aspirant to the presidency, and when the 
convention met he was nominated en the third ballot. 
Instead of Douglas alone, two Democratic candidates 
were in the field, besides a "Union" ticket supported 
principally by Whigs, but Lincoln received a great ma- 
jority of the popular and electoral vote. Of the latter he 
received one hundred and eighty votes of the three hun- 
dred and eleven ; Douglas received but twelve. 

Now he had the greatest chance ever given to an 
American, Washington not excepted, but he accepted it 
with sorrowful heart, for soon the Southern States began 
to secede and to threaten armed resistance to any at- 



ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 




'^: 

Lincoln and his Son, "Tad." 

tempt to restore them to the Union. Lincoln's one con- 
cern was to preserve the Union, whether with slavery 
or without it, and throughout the Civil War he had no 

12 Poor Boys 



182 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

other purpose in view. Even his Emancipation Procla- 
mation was at first nothing but a threat, for had the 
South heeded its terms and returned to the Union 
slavery would have been saved. 

Slowly, deliberately, yet thoroughly, as he had been at 
evervthing in his life, Lincoln became equal to his new 
duties ; he even became an abler soldier than most of the 
generals on whom he had been obliged to rely. At first 
he was under-rated and misunderstood, especially by his 
own cabinet, but when the war was closing and his own 
career was ended by an assassin many Southerners made 
haste to say that their section had lost its wisest and 
truest friend. 

No American's life should be more carefully studied 
than Lincoln's by poor boys who believe that success 
depends upon good chances. 



ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 

Born February iith, 1812; Died March 4TH, 1883. 

When the Southern Confederacy was organized in 
1861 its ablest statesman, according to the majority of 
close observers in north and south alike, was Alexander 
H. Stephens, of Georgia. Jefferson Davis was a trained 
soldier, for he had graduated at West Point, been an 
officer of the regular army, commanded a volunteer regi- 
ment in the Mexican War, and been Secretary of War of 
the United States ; he had also won a high reputation in 
politics and statesmanship while serving two years in the 
House of Representatives and eight years in the Senate, 



ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



m 




Alexander H. Stephens. 

but he lacked the keen judicial sense which was ascribed 
by the able men of both sections to Mr. Stephens. The 
latter had already served fourteen years in Cono^ress ; be- 
lieving in the right of secession yet doubting the wisdom 



184 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

of the Southern states in seceding, he was nevertheless 
elected Vice-President of the Contederacy. 

When the war ended he was elected to the United 
States Senate by Georgia (in 1866) but the date was too 
early, in the opinion of Union statesmen, to admit a man 
who had been so prominent in the Confederate govern- 
ment. In 1875 his state sent him to the House of Repre- 
sentatives, where he served five consecutive terms, re- 
tiring only when in his seventieth year he was elected 
Governor of Georgia. In the House he was held in high 
esteem by his associates, of both parties, for he was 
active, honest, patriotic, statesmanlike, learned and 
entirely devoid of partisan rancor. 

It would seem that a man so distinguished must have 
had a good start in life, for the older Southern states 
usually selected their representatives and senators from 
old, prominent, well-to-do families ; wealth and social in- 
fluence counted for much in politics at the south. But 
Stephens was not even born of southern stock, for his 
parents were Pennsylvanians ; his father, though a man 
of good education and high character, was a farmer, and 
so poor that Alexander, his youngest son, began at an 
early age to do just such work as hundreds of thousands 
of farmers' sons are doing to-day. He picked up chips, 
made garden, chopped wood, carried water and drove 
the cattle to and from pasture. At ten years of age he 
was expert at "corn dropping'* — planting grains of corn 
in the field at regular intervals, to be covered with the 
hoe ; at eleven he began to plough, and at twelve he was 
one of the regular ploughmen on the farm, for the elder 
Stephens, though an afTfectionate father, was too poor to 
own slaves or hire help and he had but one son older 
than Alexander. 

The future statesman had not even the advantage of 



ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



185 



good licalth ; he was a very sickly, puny l)oy ; indeed, ho 
was an invalid all his life ; he was always abnormally 
slight, feeble and pale, and never weighed quite a hun- 
dred pounds. When he was but a babe his mother died 
— an irreparable loss to a feeble child ; he suffered greatly 
from malarial 
troubles, a n d 
later he devel- 
oped a scrofu- 
lous infirmity 
which weakened 
him until it 
killed him. 

Yet he never 
complained of 
the c i r c u m- 
stances of his 
early boyhood. 
In later years 
he seemed to re- 
gard hard times 
and hard work 
as having been 
beneficent 
chances, for his 
most trusted 
biographer 
wrote, when Mr. 
Stephens was 

past sixty, "Now he loves to dwell on those early 
days, knowing that they were of peculiar worth to 
him. As a boy it may have seemed to him hard that with 
his delicate frame and his eager thirst for learning he was 
denied opportunities of study which were granted to so 




Jefferson Davis. 



180 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

many to whom it was a hateful drudgery, but he now sees 
that the experiences of those early days were the best 
sources of his education. He learned wisdom higher 
than any found in books, and by it he grew strong in 
endurance, strong in purpose and strong in high resolves 
to do the right, resist the wTong, and help, wherever he 
might find them, the suffering and the weak." 

His early education seems to have been peculiar, in 
view of the fact that his father often taught school and 
had at the age of fourteen been strongly recommended 
for a teacher's position. Mr. Stephens once said that up 
to his twelfth year "all my reading had been limited to 
the spelling-book and the New Testament." Old- 
fashioned spelling-books contained short sayings of 
many wise men, from "Poor Richard" backward to the 
proverbs of Solomon ; as to the New Testament, many 
good and great men owe more of their wisdom to it than 
to ail other books combined. The elder Stephens, 
learned and loving though he was, may have thought 
that hard study, added to hard physical work, would be 
too much for the strength of a feeble boy, so Alexander's 
early school days were few, and he was not urged to read. 

When Mr. Stephens died Alexander went to live with 
an uncle who was very fond of him and wished him to 
obtain an education, so he was sent to a church school in 
the vicinity. The boy desired to learn, for he felt too 
weak for continued farm-work, and he desired to fit him- 
self for a clerkship in a store. He studied hard, but a 
better chance to become educated reached him in a man- 
ner entirely unexpected. While attending Sunday-school 
near his new home his knowledge of the Bible compelled 
the admiration of the superintendent of the school, who 
offered to send the boy to an academy. The offer was 



ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 



187 



accepted, and Alexander did so well that means were 
provided to send him to the University of Georgia. 

Here he might have been happy had he not learned the 
reason of the Sunday-school superintendent's interest in 
him. Boys who are naturally studious, and without vices, 
and famihar with and fond of the New Testament, are 
scarce everywhere ; in young Stephens' day such boys 
were supposed to have been specially designed for the 
ministry, so it was the purpose of the superintendent to 




A Southern Schoolhouse. 



iiiake a Methodist minister of his favorite pupil. After 
learning this the young student's mind wavered between 
gratitude and disinclination. He was religious by birth, 
parental teaching and daily practice, but in his day a 
Methodist minister's work required an iron physique ; no 
poor woodsman made longer rides and tramps, wore 
poorer clothes, received less money or enjoyed fewer 
creature comforts ; the ministry was not a proper 
profession for an invalid. 



188 POOR BOVS' CHANCES. 

Yet while the boy wondered and wavered he did not 
neglect his studies. Still less did he become moody 
and unsociable ; he was so companionable and hearty 
that his room at the University became the favorite 
gathering-place of many students of different social 
classes ; he said afterward that men met there who 
never met elsewhere. He was so hospitable that he 
denied himself some desired comforts that he might be 
able to offer refreshments to his visitors. According 
to students themselves, a college favorite is usually a 
jolly chap who provides liquor, tobacco and cards and 
does not hesitate to tell tales not always fit for ears 
polite, yet Stephens never provided or tolerated any 
of these forms of entertainment, and the story of his 
moral courage and social success has strengthened the 
hearts of hundreds of college students whom he never 
saw nor of whom he ever heard — well-meaning boys 
who nevertheless feared that they would be laughed 
at if they did not "follow the multitude to do evil." A 
hearty, honest, clean young man can keep hundreds of 
other young men from going to the devil without be- 
coming a minister. 

After leaving the University and becoming a teacher, 
Stephens freed his sense of obligation by repaying, 
from his earnings, the money that had been expended 
on his education. Though he was so sickly and feeble 
that he expected to die he taught industriously and he 
fell in love with one of his own pupils. Some invalids 
who afterward reached prominence have made their 
physical feebleness an excuse to blight the lives 
of women by winning their pity and affection and 
leaning upon them. Stephens kept his feelings to him- 
self ; the young woman never knew of them nor did he 



ALEXANDER K. STEPHENS. Isl) 

mention the affair until many years later. Neither rlid 
he ever marr}^ 

A disappointment in love and the expectation of 
death did not offer a cheering outlook to a youth just 
coming of age ; but the invalid taught so successfully 
that he received five hundred dollars for a year's work, 
and was offered fifteen hundred dollars — an enormous 
salary for a teacher two-thirds of a century ago. — to 
continue at the school through another year. But he had 
resolved to become a lawyer. Perhaps a noticeable in- 
crease of health had cheered his heart, for on leaving 
the university, at the age of twenty, he weighed only 
seventy pounds, but at twenty-one his weight had in- 
creased to ninety-four pounds. He was still pallid and 
beardless ; frequently, even after he became a lawyer, 
he was mistaken for a boy, and for fifty years after- 
ward men marvelled that so great a mind could dwell 
in a body so frail. The explanation is simpler now 
than it would have been then, when tobacco and liquor 
were regarded as necessities of life, excitement was 
eagerly sought, and many forms of dissipation were 
tolerated in public men. Stephens never acquired any 
habit that could lessen his vitality. 

He was admitted to the bar after only three months 
of study, though his examiners were two of the ablest 
judges in Georgia, and his ability to apply what he 
learned was so evident that the principal lawyer of his 
county offered him a partnership and a guarantee of fif- 
teen hundred dollars a year — an income as large as 
many able country lawyers earn at the present time. 
But he preferred to begin slowly and modestly, in a 
small town. 

Before long, however, he astonished all his legal ac- 
quaintances and won prominence by his successful 



irO POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

management of a case in which all precedents and 
chances seemed against him. The child of a widow 
who had re-married injudiciously was claimed and 
taken in charge by a grandfather, on the ground that 
the mother was no longer a proper person to care for 
the child. The facts supported the grandfather's posi- 
tion, and when the case came into court the guardian 
had a strong array of witnesses and lawyers. Stephens' 
plea was based solely on the rights of maternity, which 
he presented so eloquently that he carried all before 
him ; there were five judges on the bench; and all were 
moved to tears. Stephens won his case. 

Immediately he became one of the busiest and most 
successful lawyers in the state. At the age of twenty- 
four he was elected to the legislature, where he served 
five consecutive terms ; he declined a sixth nomination 
but a year later he was elected to the State Senate, and 
in the following year (1843) when he was thirty-one 
years of age, he w^as sent to Congress, where he served 
continuously and with great ability for sixteen years. 
He was one of the rare legislators who combined the 
best qualities of a jurist, an orator and a "working" 
member. He was an earnest defender of slavery, yet 
he did not labor for its extension; unlike most other 
southern members, he favored the admission of Cali- 
fornia as a free state and he opposed the Mexican War, 
the political purpose of which was to increase the pos- 
sible area of slavery. 

In 1859 he formally retired from public life, but when 
the south seceded he was called to the Vice-Presidency 
of the Confederacy, and, as already stated, he was 
elected to the United States Senate, though not seated, 
soon after the war ended. In 1875 he was returned to 
Congress, where he served four successive terms and 




The Confederacy Inaugurate^. 



m 



192 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

again distinguished himself as a working member and 
a speaker of rare eloquence, and also won the respect 




The Confederate Capitol, Richmond, Y-a. 



and affection of all his associates, despite the extreme 
political differences which marked the period. 

Physically slight and feeble though he was, his per- 



ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS. 193 

sonal courage was as great as that of any giant. He 
was slow to take offense, but on two occasions he was 
quick to challenge prominent men who had insulted 
him, for the duel was still in vogue at the south. Once 
he was attacked by an angry judge who drew a knife 
and threatened to kill him for statements he had made, 
but the little invalid stood his ground like a man of iron, 
repeated the statements and cowed his enemy. 

Never in the course of his long, successful career did 
Mr. Stephens forget the poverty and struggles of his 
boyhood, and in time he put his memories to practical 
and lasting use. His income was large ; he had no 
family, so he might have lived luxuriously, but he 
maintained the simple habits of his earliest adult years 
and used most of his money in educating deserving 
young men who were also poor. More than one 
hundred college graduates owed their educational op- 
portunities entirely to Mr. Stephens, who regretted 
that his means had not enabled him to make the num- 
ber far greater. 

Except that he was helped to obtain an education, 
Alexander H. Stephens* early life was utterly devoid 
of anything which boys would call a good chance, and 
he had more incentives to "give up" than any other 
boy named in this book. Any boy is competent to point 
the moral for himself. 



GENERAL GRANT. 

Born April 27th^ 1822; Died July 23Rd^ 1885. 

For more than a quarter of a century General Grant 
was the greatest hero of American boys. Like Wash- 
ington, he became general-in-chief of our armies and 
twice he was elected President of the United States, but 
as president he ruled a land four times as great and 
twelve times as populous as were the United States in 
Washington's day. As to his troops, they were almost a 
hundred times as many as were ever under Washington's 
immediate command at any period of the revolutionary 
war, and, thanks to telegraphy, he was in touch with the 
entire army, as Washington never could have been. After 
his military and political duties had been discharged, he 
made a tour of the world, and though he was as liter- 
ally a private citizen as the commonest American, the 
great generals, statesmen and rulers of Europe and 
Asia vied with one another in efforts to do him special 
honor. 

It would seem that to have accomplished so much a 
man must have had some unusual chances. But "The 
boy is father of the man" — a fact which no boy can afiford 
to forget — so, what were the chances that made his 
character? 

It is certain that wealth and social position were not 
among them, for when he was born his father was a 
tanner in a small, poor, shabby Ohio village, and his 
home (which still stands) consisted of but two rooms, one 
of which was kitchen, dining-room, sitting-room and 

194 



GENERAL GRANT. 



195 




General TTlysses ??. Grant. 



parlor ; the other was the family bedroom. The making 
of leather is necessary and therefore honorable work; it 
is also an extremely dirty and poorly paid business to the 



196 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

man who conducts it with his own hands, as Grant's 
father did. 

Nor did the Ohio tanner's son have any early educa- 
tional advantages. He went to such schools as the village 
could support, and learned reading, writing and arith- 
metic, but he did not distinguish himself. A great soldier 
is popularly supposed to be by nature a man who is fond 
of fighting, but young Grant's reputation was that of the 
most peaceable boy in the town. There was fighting 
blood in the family, for his grandfather was in the battle 
of Lexington, where was ''fired the shot heard round the 
world" and he remained a soldier throughout the 
Revolutionary War, but he was of the quality that does 
not fight for fighting's sake, but for what fighting will 
bring. Strangely enough — to boys, this is the only sort 
of fighting blood that never disgraces itself. 

When Grant was about a year old his father moved to 
another town and went into business for himself, but the 
only visible improvement in his circumstances for a few 
years was in the new house, which had three rooms in- 
stead of two. The town itself was tiny — a mere settle- 
ment in the midst of a great forest ; its attractiveness, to 
the older Grant, was that there were innumerable oak 
trees from which to get tan-bark. 

In such towns the small boys had to be men, to the 
best of their abihty, so when the future general and 
president was about eight years of age he was set to 
breaking tan-bark for the mill which ground it to small 
fragments. It was hard, dirty work — I know it is, for 
I've done a lot of it ; the dust from the breaking bark gets 
into the eyes and makes them smart; it gets into the 
throat, too, and makes the throat sore, for small boys 
usually breathe through their mouths. Perhaps it was 



General grant. l9^ 

by fighting this dust that Grant acquired the most firm- 
set mouth ever seen on a good-natured American. 

To get rid of bark-breaking he had but one chance ; it 
was to become useful with horses. He had already made 
himself acquainted with horses' ways, so before he was 
nine years he became "d. regular teamster," his father 



Birthplace of Ulysses S. Grant. 

said, and at ten years he often drove a pair of horses and 
carried passengers between his town (Georgetown) and 
Cincinnati, forty miles away. To do as one Hkes with a 
horse is great fun for a boy, but Grant found that driving 
a team and caring for it on long trips through a country 
without a single paved road was as hard work as a 
modern boy can find anywhere. When there was no 

]^g Poor Boys 



198 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

teaming or staging' to do, the boy helped at the farm 
work — a kind of work that boys hate so badly that most 
farmer's sons in the United States dodge it, as soon as 
they can, by crowding into towns and cities to work in 
factories or elbow one another out of the clerkships that 
are too few to go round. 

But hard work was a common accomplishment in young 




"It was Hard, Dirty Work." 

Grant's day, so it could not have been merely learning 
to work that made the boy's character. When Grant 
began to be famous, and for years afterward, his old 
neighbors could not account for his success. He had not 
even amounted to much among the boys, but regarding 
this there is sufficient explanation, for in all towns there 
are two distinct classes of boys — the worse and the 
better. "Birds of a feather flock together;" the bad 



GENERAL GRANT. 



199 



boys of Georgetown were said to "lay for" Grant, who 
passed for a slow, stupid chap because he paid no atten- 
tion to any one's business but his own, and would not 
learn to swear or to use Hquor and tobacco. He took 
refuge with boys older than himself — a position which he 
could maintain only by learning to control his tongue ; 
this also may have been hard work, but the accomplish- 
ment was of great service to him in later years. 




" A Regular Teamster." 

He could handle horses, but what country boy could 
not? The neighbors could remember, however, that his 
horses were always kept in good condition. They re- 
membered also that his father and -nother were very 
proud of him and did all they could to put his mind and 
body in good condition ; that was a chance such as 
millions of other boys had, without startHng results, for 



20 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him 
drink." It was also remembered of him that he was very 
fond of girls but did not make love to them — a distinc- 
tion that boys can not ponder too carefully if they wish to 
have full control of their heads when they have become 
men. It was said, too, that at school he learned his 
lessons, instead of getting quicker-witted boys to help 
him to the "answers." Probably this accounts for the 
very ordinary record he afterward made at the Military 
Academy, but all he acquired there and at earlier schools 
was his own, so none of it escaped his mind. 

Most boys have at least the chance of growmg into 
their father's business, but Grant hated tanning, and in 
his sixteenth year he startled his father by saying he 
would work at it until he was twenty-one, but not a day 
longer. When his father asked what he would like to do, 
he replied that he would like to be a farmer, or a trader, 
or to get an education. 

Then came a chance for which at least a million Amer- 
ican boys are longing to-day, for he became a West Point 
cadet. But even then he did not wish to be a soldier ; he 
did not even wish to go to West Point, but he accepted 
the position because his father told him to, and because 
he could get an education without expense to his family. 

No school or college course in the United States, ex- 
cept perhaps that of the Naval Academy, is so hard and 
exacting as that of West Point. It was harder in Grant's 
day than it is now, when not one appointee in three suc- 
ceeds in graduating. Sixty or more years ago, when 
Grant entered, there were not free high schools all over 
the land, nor other facilities for preparation. As the 
students are to become soldiers as well as school grad- 
uates, they are placed at once under strict and ceaseless 
miUtary discipline, compared with which the strictest 



GENERAL GRANT. 



201 



home-rule is merely an intermittent worry. Worse still, 
for boys bent on having their own way, there is a system 
of demerits or "black marks," for trivial offenses as well 
as for great ones, and a certain number requires dis- 
missal, which is not a pleasing thing to carry home, to 
be ''thrown at you" by the boys who did not succeed 
in getting cadetships. The working day begins earlier 




" Hazing was then Common. 



than most home boys are out of bed, and does not end 
till late evening, and "taps," or bedtime, follows with 
dismal quickness. The routine would be impossible 
mentally except for the quantity and variety of drills 
and other physical exercise. Hardest of all, however, 
to a boy fresh from any sort of home, is the constant 
deference that must be paid to authority, for good 
boys and bad, strong boys and weak, are as one in their 



202 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

hatred of being "bossed," particularly when the bosses 
themselves are boys, as are all the officers of the cadet 
corps. 

But in some ways West Point is a paradise in com- 
parison with its condition during Grant's cadet days. 
The meals were as plain as those of a common soldier 
in barracks, the rooms small and stuffy and all the 
dirty work, such as floor-scrubbing, had to be done by 
the students. Worse than all, there was the meanest 
species of bullying ever known in the United States. 
"Hazing" wdiich has been almost entirely suppressed, 
was then common, and "plebes" as members of the new 
class were called, were treated as fair game for the 
upper classes, and among any two or three hundred 
school-boys there are enough bullies to make life miser- 
able for such of the others as are not big enough or 
quick enough to take care of themselves. Besides, 
many of the West Point bullies were cadet-officers, and 
to strike an officer was an enormous offense against 
"good order and military discipline," which is the basis 
of all military organizations. Sense of humor seems 
to have been scarce at West Point, for bullying is one 
of the meanest forms of cowardice — a vice which in 
any form would seem peculiarlv out of place in a school 
where soldiers were to be made. 

Yet Grant survived everything, while other boys, in 
the customary and great proportion, gave up, or broke 
down, or took to drink, or were made worthless for 
life. He "made the record" as a horseman; the aver- 
age marks of his studies placed him only at about the 
middle of his class at graduation, yet what he had 
learned he knew so well that in after years he com- 
manded most of the men who graduated above him 
and conquered the others in fair fight. Class-marks at 



GENERAL GRANT. 



203 



school do not always indicate the full quality of the 
student; even fellow-students may be better judges 
than the instructors. In after years Grant's room- 
mate, Longstreet, the famous Confederate general, 
said *'He was of a reflective mind — something seemed 
working deep down in his thoughts." Another mem- 
ber of his class — General Ingalls, of the Union Army, 




*'He Made a Record as a Horseman." 

said "When our schooldays were over, if the average 
opinion of the members of the class had been taken, 
every one would have said 'There is "Sam" Grant; he 
is a splendid fellow ; a good, honest man against whom 
nothing can be said and from /hom everything may be 
expected.' " 

How did he win such opinions from those who knew 
him best? His chances had been no better than their 



204 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

own, nor as good as some had enjoyed, for in his class 
were rich men's sons whose opportunities had been un- 
limited. The only explanation is that a man's life is 
made not by the number and brilliancy of his chances, 
but by the use he makes of them. He treated his head 
as any boy who became successful treated his pocket — 
when he got anything into it he kept it there, and 
turned it over and over until the right time came to 
use it. 

Still he did not wish to be a soldier. He did not like 
fighting, or even the thought of it ; as to bloodshed — 
well, it is a fact that even the sight of a piece of raw 
beef made him uncomfortable. His hope and ambi- 
tion was to become a teacher of mathematics after he 
had completed the period of service for which each 
cadet was obliged to bind himself. He went through 
the Mexican War under compulsion, practically, for 
he thought the conflict and conquest unjust. He gave 
way to the common temptation and curse of the old 
army — drink, resigned, and sank into obscurity and 
apparent failure, yet a few years afterward, when 
exactly such a man was needed, he and whatever he had 
learned were ''all there." He still hated fighting, yet 
when fighting was the one thing most necessary to the 
preservation of the Union he was the only man of whom 
President Lincoln ever said "I can't spare him ; he 
fights ;" this was said at a time, too, when Grant had 
more enemies and fewer friends than any prominent 
officer in the army, and a determined effort was being 
made to deprive him of his command. 

Grant's first active service was in the war with 
Mexico, which began about three years after he gradu- 
ated. He fought under both Taylor and Scott, the 
two commanders between whom the honors of the war 



GENERAL GRANT. 



205 



were divided. He took part in many engagements, in 
one of which he of his own accord seized the key to a 
position by dragging a cannon into the tower of a 
church, where it commanded a city gate. He was 
quartermaster of his regiment, and quartermasters are 
not expected to fight, yet General Longstreet says 
"You could not keep Grant out of the battle." This 




TIio Cannon in the Church Tower. 

would seem inconsistent with his dislike of fighting and 
bloodshed, but, as an old saying has it, "The harder 
the fighting the sooner it will end." 

But he learned as well as fought. As one of his 
biographers says, **From Taylor he learned simplicity 
in Army regulation, from Scott rigorous discipline" — • 
two qualities which he combined when he became a 
commander. His experience as a quartermaster taught 



206 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

him how helpless soldiers are unless properly fed and 
clothed ; many brilliant fighters have lost battles 
through not looking after the shoes and stomachs of 
their men. Other young officers who survived and 
took part in the Civil War saw as much as Grant, but 
their memories and thoughts did not make room for it. 

In 1853 he reached the grade of captain, but within 
a year he was conquered by liquor — the most tricky 
foe that a soldier can meet. He was not a drunkard, 
yet a very small quantity of liquor would unman him 
at any time. Many of his friends insisted that his 
offense was not great enough to justify his withdrawal 
from an army wuich contained many officers wdio were 
deplorable drunkards, and they implied that he was 
forced to resign by his regimental commander, who 
was of a severe disposition. Whatever the facts about 
this, in 1854, at the age of thirty-two, he found himself 
without occupation, with a wife and family to support 
and with a cloud on his reputation ; he was also es- 
tranged from his father and brothers. 

His father-in-law gave him the use of about eighty 
acres of land, and on it Grant built a log-cabin and "put 
in a crop," working hard with his own hands, though 
in a slave state (Missouri), where such work could not 
help lower the social position of an ex-officer of the 
army. He cut wood and hauled it to market — as hard 
a way of earning money as could be found, but despite 
his poverty and hard work he succeeded in earning the 
respect of every one who knew him. Over-work and 
malaria soon undermined his health and depressed his 
spirits. He attempted to change his business by be- 
coming a real estate agent in St. Louis, but he was a 
poor talker and he had not the trading instinct, so he 
failed, Yet, silent though he was on most subjects, he 



GENERAL GRANT. 



207 



is remembered in St. Louis as a tluent, brilliant talker 
on all military topics ; the art of soldiering had "got 
into his mind" and there it stayed and grew. 

In i860 he went to Galena, 111., as clerk in a leather 
store owned by his brothers. The air was full of talk 
of possible Southern secession and civil war. A few 
days after Fort Sumter was fired on he took part in the 




Bombardment of Fort Sumter. 



organization of two military companies, and then went 
to Springfield, the state capital, where he supposed a 
man of his military knowledge would be needed, but to 
his dismay the governor told him there was nothing 
for him to do. Later the governor put him in the ad- 
jutant general's office, where he was the only man who 
knew anything about the business in hand. Grant 
offered his services to the adjutant general in Washing- 



208 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

ton but received no answer to his letter. The reasons 
for his leaving the army became known in Springfield 
and mjured his few possible chances. He left Spring- 
field, hoping to get an appointment from General Fre- 
mont at St. Louis or General M'Clellan at Cincinnati ; 
Fremont and M'Clellan were the most prominent gen- 
erals of the time, but neither of them would even see 
Grant. 

Suddenly the governor of Illinois offered him the 
command of a regiment which had become unruly 
under a ''political" colonel, and Grant was introduced 
to his men by Congressman (afterward Major General) 
John A. Logan, who was the most strikingly handsome 
man in Illinois. Logan made a long, exciting speech ; 
Congressman M'Clelland had previously addressed the 
regiment, so the men demanded a speech from Grant 
also. It seemed to be a great chance ; so it was, and 
he improved it in a manner that staggered the men 
and fixed his grip upon them, for he merely said "Men, 
go to your quarters." All of them remembered that 
speech to the end of their days. In a few days the gov- 
ernor was ordered to send a reginemt to Mexico, Mo. 
Grant said "Send mine." The governor complained 
that he had no means of transportation. *T'll find it," 
was the reply, and the regiment (the 2ist Illinois) 
started at once and on its own shoe-soles. 

Several other regiments were gathered at Mexico, 
and Grant, as the ranking colonel, drilled and disci- 
plined all of them. One day when returning from a 
short absence from his camp, he saw his regiment in 
line, and as he appeared there arose "Three cheers for 
General Grant!" he having been appointed Brigadier 
General. All his acquaintances thought him in great 
luck. Almost at once he began to fight and to win 




o 



210 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

victories which brought great trouble to him, for there 
were generals of higher rank who coveted the glory of 
everything that chanced to be done by their subordi- 
nates, so after his victory at Fort Donelson he was 
ordered under arrest, on a charge of absence without 
leave. Afterward his movements were hampered by 
jealous chiefs and efforts were made to force him out 
of the service, for if he were to continue as he had 
begun there would not be glory enough to go round. 
But the president stood by him ; as already quoted, he 
said '*I can't spare him ; he fights," so after Grant had 
conquered the southern armies on the eastern side of 
the Mississippi valley he was called to Washington and 
made General-in-chief of the Army. 

He made his headquarters with the Army of the 
Potomac, which had long confronted General Lee. 
Very soon the Potomac Army became convinced that 
there was a new kind of man at headquarters ; so did 
Lee and his generals, and they had frequent reminders 
of it until they surrendered at Appomattox. 

It was supposed that Grant knew nothing about 
politics, but in the three years that followed the war 
he exhibited great sense and tact in political compli- 
cations in which President Johnson involved him. As 
a consequence, in 1868 the Republican party nominated 
him for the presidency and he was elected. His ad- 
ministration was the wonder and rage of politicians of 
all parties, for the Cabinet attended strictly to busi- 
ness and endeavored to ignore politics ; it was called a 
''Kitchen Cabinet" and the President was charged with 
being a military satrap, for he acted as if he were 
really the chief executive for whom the Constitution 
provides, instead of a mere tool of his party's managers, 
as most presidents are. He blundered at times, as 



GENERAL GRANT. 



211 



had all other presidents, and great newspaper opposi- 
tion was arrayed against him, but he was re-elected by 
a far greater majority, both electoral and popular, than 
any subsequent candidate has received. 

Reference has already been made to his foreign tour 
Soon after his return to the United States he became 
the leading candidc^te in the Republican Convention of 
1880 and would have 
been nominated for 
the presidency had he 
consented to "a deal" 
that was suggested. 
He made several at- 
tempts to go into busi- 
ness, and he beggared 
himself by trusting a 
trickster. At about 
that time, while poor 
and helpless, he was 
prostrated by an in- 
curable disease. Then 
was his chance to be- 
moan the proverbial 
ingratitude of repub- 
lics, for any other 
nation would have re- 
warded so successful 
a soldier with great 

riches as well as honors, and provided for his family 
forever. 

But Grant on his sick bed, and finally in the chair in 
which he died, wrote the most profitable book, to the 
author, that ever was published in the United States, 




General Grant in 1880. 



212 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

and thus secured his family against want. He was also 
the author, "silent man" though he was called, of some 
sayings dear to the popular heart ; one of them deserves 
daily contemplation by every American. It is this : "As 
individuals we do not think well enough of our 
country." 



"STONEWALL" JACKSON. 
Born January 24TH, 1824; Died May ioth, 1863. 

Some careful students of our Civil War believe that 
America lost its ablest soldier when "Stonewall" Jack- 
son died. Extreme development of a single military 
quality seemed sufficient to make some commanders 
great, but Jackson was equally capable at strategy, 
marching and fighting; his perceptions were quick, 
his mind active, and his ability to "hold his men to- 
gether" — a general's rarest accomplishment, was ex- 
traordinary. 

Yet he had enjoyefi no better chances of learning the 
art of war than most of his associates and enemies of 
corresponding rank. He was a West Point graduate 
and had served with credit in the Mexican War as an 
artillery lieutenant, but three years after peace was 
declared he resigned his commission, accepted a pro- 
fessorship in an academy, and, being intensely relig- 
ious, was inclined to become a missionary. 

Though not born in poverty he became poor too 
early in life to know that he had ever been otherwise. 
His father, an able lawyer who had inherited a little 



'STONEWALL" JACKSON. 



213 




Thomas J. Jackson- 



Stonewall. 



fortune, lost most of his money by unwise assistance 
to friends ; he gambled away the remainder and died 
while Thomas, the subject of this sketch, was but three 
year of age, leaving his widow absolutely destitute. 



■^i^ Poor Boyc 



214 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Mrs. Jackson endeavored to support her family by 
teaching and sewing. She re-married, but her financial 
condition did not improve; the family was divided, 
Thomas going to live with an aunt, whose husband he 
learned in time to dislike, so one day he left the house 
and informed some relatives that he would not live 
with his aunt any longer; then, alone and of his own 
accord, though he was but eight years of age, he 
walked eighteen miles to the farm of an uncle with 
whom his elder brother already lived. 

This uncle, according to his distinguished nephew's 
biographers, was industrious, energetic, affectionate, 
irreligious, unscrupulous and dissolute. He loved his 
nephews dearly, and through family pride, or good 
sense, or both, he insisted that they should go to school 
and study hard ; he also taught Thomas to ride in horse- 
races, and the boy was so apt a learner that his horses 
generally won. At school Thomas was industrious, but 
slow ; his brother disliked school and refused to attend ; 
after quarrelling about it with his uncle he ran away, 
coaxing or compelling Thomas, then under twelve 
years of age, to accompany him. The whereabouts of 
the boys was unknown for half a year, but late in the 
winter they returned sick and repentant; they had 
made their w^ay from their home in Western Virginia 
to the Ohio, down which they floated in a boat until 
they reached the Mississippi ; near the river they bui't 
a cabin and supported themselves by chopping wood 
to sell to steamboats. Each brought back with hirn a 
malaria-soaked physique ; the elder brother soon died 
and Thomas never fully recovered from the effects of 
his escapade. He was also believed to have inherited 
consumptive tendencies from his mother, who died 
when he was in his seventh year, so he could not ex- 



216 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

pect even the common chances of good health with 
which to begin anew the battle of life. 

But he went back to his studies, in his slow, plod- 
ding, yet energetic way. Whether through inheritance, 
or his mother s injunctions, or his own will, he had ac- 
quired the habit of continuing at whatever he had 
begun. He had determined to become educated, so he 
remained true to his resolution. He had to leave school 
and work on his uncle's farm ; contrary to northern 
fancy, the only Virginia landowners who did not work 
with their hands were the few whose plantations were 
large and well-stocked with slaves. There are men 
still living who remember young Jackson as a hard 
worker and also, young though he was, a clever mana- 
ger of work that required brains. Yet he studied and 
read whenever he had leisure and his desire for an edu- 
cation became so generally known that even the 
commonest people had heard of it and wished him well. 
In his eighteenth year, while he was serving as a con- 
stable, his principal duty being to collect money from 
reluctant debtors, a West Point appointee returned to 
the district, discouraged by the hard discipline and 
harder work at the Military Academy. A blacksmith, 
who knew of Jackson's desire to study, said to the 
boy's uncle "There's a chance for Tom to get an edu- 
cation." The uncle acted on the suggestion, and the 
appointment was secured, though the boy was so in- 
sufficiently prepared that the Congressman who ap- 
pointed him did not believe he could pass the exami- 
nation. 

He appeared at West Point, according to a brother 
cadet, clad in homespun — an awkward, shambling 
figure, but with a grim face in which one could read 
*T've come to stay." Mathematics had been his favor- 



^'STONEWALL" JACKSON. 217 

ite study, yet his progress had been so little that he 
feared failure at the first examination after entrance, so 
he studied long after other men were asleep ; just before 
"taps" — "lights out" — was to sound, he would pile 
coal high in the grate ; then, after the lamp was ex- 
tinguished, he would lie on the floor with his head 
close to the fire and study as long as the coals would 
give him light. While at West Point he compiled 
some rules of conduct, among which was, "You may 
be whatever you resolve to be," and he lived up to it, 
regardless of temptations, disappointments and hin- 
drances. He was already known to be absolutely truth- 
ful and destitute of vices of any kind. 

He went direct from the Academy to the Mexican 
War, where he manifested great ability, endurance and 
courage; on one occasion, when the men of his section 
of a battery had been lost or temporarily removed, he 
served one of the guns with his own hands, and he won 
two "brevets," or complimentary commissions, for 
gallant and meritorious conduct. 

By mental constitution he was a hard fighter, which, 
in a good man, means no more nor less than a hard 
v/orker. He quickly wearied of the inaction, petty 
duties and temptations to indulgence that came with 
the restoration of peace, so in 185 1 he resigned his com- 
mission and became an instructor in natural science 
and tactics in the Virginia Military Institute at Lexing- 
ton. 

Here he worked industriously for nine years, study- 
ing as well as teaching. He had already become relig- 
ious, and as he could do nothing by halves he was very 
active in religious work. He even founded a Sunday- 
school for slaves and persuaded ladies and gentlemen 
to assist him in teaching his black pupils. Overwork 



218 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

enfeebled his body but seemed to have no effect upon 
his mind. When an affection of the eyes made him 
unable to read after sunset, he spent his evenings in 
systematic thought over whatever he had read by day- 
light — a habit that cannot be too strongly commended 
to every one who really "wants to know" in distinction 
from merely liking to read. 

When Virginia seceded he organized a militia regi- 
ment, of which he became colonel. General Lee, who 
knew him well, quickly secured him a commission as 
brigadier-general, in which capacity he led the first 
brigade of some reinforcements needed by the Con- 
federate left at the Battle of Bull Run. A few moments 
after his appearance he won his historic nickname. The 
left of the Confederates was being forced back, the air 
was full of shot and shell and some of the southern 
troops, under fire for the first time in their lives, were 
becoming demoralized. General Bee, a gallant soldier 
who was trying to rally the fragments of his brigade, 
pointed to Jackson's line and shouted "There is Jack- 
son, standing like a stone wall !" — and Jackson re- 
mained "Stonewall" thereafter. Toward him pressed 
the weary but exultant Union troops ; Bee dashed 
bravely at them with a few of his men and fell dead. ^ 
Meanwhile Jackson had told his men not to fire until j 
the enemy were within fifty yards ; to charge with the ■ 
bayonet (his favorite weapon) immediately after firing . 
*'and when you charge, yell like fury." His orders 
were obeyed (as Jackson's orders always were ; some 
able generals' orders were not) and with that charge 
began the change of fortunes at the Battle of Bull Run. 

For this service Jackson was appointed a major-gen- 
eral, in which capacity he did wonderful work in north- 
ern Virginia. To comprehend his success the reader 




219 



220 POOR BOYS' CHANGES. 

should understand the geography of the country. The 
Blue Ridge, practically a wall several thousand feet 
high, divides eastern Virginia from the Shenandoah 
Valley. Most of the great battles of the Army of the 
Potomac with General Lee's Army were fought east 
of the Blue Ridge, but a strong Union force in the 
Shenandoah Valley could seriously menace Lee's rear 
and flanks. The "Valley," therefore, was always a 
scene of special campaigning; there were but two or 
three passes, or "gaps," by which troops in it could 
cross the Blue Ridge. At one time Jackson, in the 
Valley, seemed surrounded by several Union armies, 
yet he defeated some, mystified others, eluded the re- 
mainder and joined General Lee with twenty thou- 
sand men whom Lee greatly needed. He descended 
one day upon Harper's Ferry, where the Shenandoah 
joins the Potomac, and captured thirteen thousand 
prisoners and seventy cannon. As Lieutenant-General 
he commanded the Confederate right v/ing at the Battle 
of Fredericksburg, where the Union Army was badly 
beaten, and when General Hooker moved the Potomac 
Army forward at Chancellorville he first met Jackson's 
command, which fought with a fierceness that com- 
pelled Hooker to change his plan. On the second day 
of the Chancellorville battle Jackson was dangerously 
wounded by his own men while he was returning from 
a reconnoisance between the lines ; an attack of pneu- 
monia followed this misfortune, and he died five days 
after the battle. 

To what chance of youth or manhood did Stonewall 
Jackson, the obedient, slow, plodding boy, the tender- 
hearted teacher and Christian, owe the ability to out- 
march and out-fight any general with or against whom 
he served? Merely to the chance of stern necessity, 



'STONEWALL" JACKSON. 



221 



which taug-ht him that in every struggle of life one 
must either succeed or fail — either conquer or l)e con- 
quered, so he trained his character accordingly. Oth'^r 




Stonewall" Jackson's Monument, Richmond, Ya. 



men in both armies had done likewise, but from boy- 
hood Jackson had also lived and fought in the spirit of 
the injunction 'Whatever thy hand findeth to do, that 
do with all thy might." 



GEORGE PEABODY 
Born February i8th, 1792; Died November 4TH, 1869. 

About thirty years ago the finest battle-ship of the ! 
British navy left England on a strange errand, for a 
naval-vessel ; she was bearing to the United States the 
remains of an American citizen, over whose coffin were 
draped the Stars and Stripes and the British royal en- 
sign. When the ship neared the New England coast 
she was met and escorted by a fleet of the American 
navy, with Admiral Farragut in command. Before 
the remains left England they had been conveyed to 
Westminster Abbey and honored with a funeral service 
in which hundreds of noted Britons took part. It was 
the first time that the doors of the ancient Abbey — the 
tomb of England's kings and queens, great nobles and 
statesmen, had admitted the coffin of a private citizen 
of any foreign country, yet George Peabody, the 
American in the coffin, might have been interred there 
had he not with almost his last words, insisted that he 
should be buried at his birthplace (Danvers, Mass.) 

The remains of noted statesmen or great soldiers ' 
who die in foreign countries are sometimes sent home I 
in war-vessels and received with impressive ceremo- 
nies, but George Peabody had never been "in polities'' 
and his only military service had been as a private 
soldier in the last war with Great Britian, before he 
had come of age. Yet he had endeared himself to 
England and America by distributing philanthropically 
and with good judgment more money than had ever 
222 




George Peabody. 



224 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

before been given away by any citizen of either 
country. 

Yet he was born poor, ana his school opportunities 
ended when at the age of eleven he was apprenticed to 
a grocer in his native village. This was a business 
chance, of its kind, yet no better than thousands of 
other boys of the period enjoyed — or suffered — accord- 
ing to their respective dispositions. At the age of six- 
teen a better opportunity appeared, for he got em- 
ployment in his brother's drygoods store at Newbury- 
port, then the greatest Massachusetts city after Boston. 
This chance soon and literally "went up in smoke," 
for the store with its contents was destroyed by fire, 
but the boy had made for himself a good reputation, 
which is a kind of personal property that is fireproof. 

An uncle who was in business in Georgetown, D. C, 
invited George to come to him as office assistant ; two 
years later young Peabody, only nineteen years of age, 
became junior partner in a general mercantile firm in 
which the senior supplied the capital and the junior 
had sole control of the business. This was nor a streak 
of luck ; some other young man would have got the 
place had not young Peabody been the most competent 
person within reach. He managed the business so 
well that it became too great to be confined to a place 
so small as Georgetown ; it was removed to Baltimore 
and branch houses were afterwards established in 
Philadelphia and New York and in time Peabody be- 
came its sole owner. 

In 1837 — a year of financial panic and general busi- 
ness depression in the United States, Peabody went to 
London and with his own little fortune, which was in 
cash and good securities, and with some capital con- 
tributed by others, he started the banking and broker- 



GEORGE PEABODY. 



225 



age firm of George Peabody & Co. He had previously 
visited England for business purposes and impressed 
''the city," as the business portion of London is called, 
with his honesty, judgment and ability. 1837 was a 
good year in which to handle American securities 
abroad ; the panic had frightened Americans into lock- 
ing up their cash, so a great many really good stocks, 




Birthplace of George Peabody, Danvers, Mass. 

bonds and business notes went begging. Peabody sud- 
denly became famous in business circles, on both sides 
of the ocean, by placing eight million dollars of Mary- 
land bonds, with which all other agents had failed. His 
success saved Maryland's credit, but he added to the 
state's gratitude by declining, through affection and 



226 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

respect for Baltimore, where he had long resided, to 
accept his $200,000 commission for placing the bonds. 
Business men were not in the habit of being so gener- 
ous, so the world made haste to call Peabody a "mer- 
chant prince." 

In 1851 the first "World's Fair" was held in London. 
Many American exhibits were sent over, but no pro- 
vision was made for their arrangement and display, so 
Peabody, still (as always) a patriotic American, gave 
the matter his personal attention and at his own ex- 
pense ; it cost him $15,000. When an American mer- 
chant, Mr. Grinnell, gave one of his ships for a voyage 
in polar seas to search for the remains of Sir John 
Franklin's expedition, which had started years before 
to discover the ''open Polar sea" and perhaps the pole 
itself, $10,000 was needed to "fit out" the Grinnell ship; 
Mr. Peabody promptly gave the money. 

Meanwhile he had begun in London, in the World's 
Fair year, a series of Fourth of July dinners ; 
these did much to increase good feeling between two 
countries which, though of the same blood, had been 
estranged by two wars. It was his custom to invite to 
these dinners all prominent Americans in London an(f 
also many Englishmen of high position and influence, 
and it is said that no one ever declined one of his invi- 
tations. 

Soon afterward he began his greater efforts for the 
improvement of the general condition of mankind. His 
first donation was to his native town, where, in mem- 
ory of his own limited opportunities for education, he 
founded an institute and library with $30,000; succes- 
sive gifts raised the cost of this benefaction to $200,000. 
In 1857 he gave $300,000 to Baltimore for a similar 
purpose, and he afterward increased the amount to 



GEORGE PEABODY. 



227 



$1,000,000. He also contributed largely to the aid of 
needy colleges, hospitals, etc. 

In 1862 he began to amaze and delight London and 
all Europe by providing decent homes for the deserving 
poor. In London, as elsewhere, poor families, no mat- 
ter how honest and industrious, were obliged to in- 
habit building:s too old and uncomfortable for other 




The Grinnell Expedition in the Ice. 

people to endure ; new buildings were erected only for 
the well-to-do classes. Peabody's houses were planned 
by the ablest architects; special attention was paid to 
sightliness, convenience, light and drainage, yet the 
tenants found them as cheap as the wretched apart- 
ments in which they had been compelled to live. He 
continued this work more than a quarter of a century, 
expended in it about two and one-half million dollars 



228 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

and housed about twenty thousand people. His build- 
ings were not only a beneficence; they were an object 
lesson to landlords, many of whom were obliged to 
follow his example, until the poorest Londoner who 
could pay rent at all was enabled to have a decent 
home. As a consequence, all London, from the hum- 
blest mechanic to Queen Victoria herself, still holds 
George Peabody in affectionate remembrance. 

Part of Mr. Peabody's fortune came through his 
patriotic feeling, for during our Civil War he invested 
largely in our government bonds. There were times 
when our credit was so low, the fortunes of war were 
so uncertain and the possibility of European recogni- 
tion of the Southern Confederacy so f^reat that forty 
dollars in gold would buy a hundred-dollar bond. But 
besides loving his country Peabody knew it and trusted 
it, and he received an enormous reward. 

Meanwhile he was giving hundreds of thousands 
every year for educational and philanthropic purposes, 
but his greatest single gift, made soon after the Civil 
War ended, was one of two million dollars for the pro- 
motion of education in the southern states ; this great 
fund, placed in the hands of a carefully selected board 
of trustees, was afterward increased to $3,500,000. 

In 1868 he endowed an art school in Italy ; in the fol- 
lowing year he gave $150,000 to a museum in Salem, 
Mass., and made large gifts for several other purposes. 
During one of his later visits to the United States the 
people of London subscribed money for a bronze statue 
of Mr. Peabody by Story, a noted American artist, and 
it was placed in the Royal Exchange of London and 
unveiled by the Prince of Wales, acting as representa- 
tive of the Queen. Her majesty desired to make Mr. 
Peabody a baronet, but he declined the honor; he also 




1 g Poor Boys 



229 



230 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

declined "The Order of the Bath," — the most coveted 
of British decorations ; when askea what he would ac- 
cept he replied "A letter from the Queen of England, 
which I may carry across the Atlantic and deposit as a 
memorial of one of her most faithful sons." He got the 
letter; with it came a miniature portrait of the queen, 
framed in gold, but he did not ostentatiously deposit 
them where they could be seen by the greatest possible 
number of people ; they are on exhibition in the insti- 
tute which he established in his own native town of 
Danvers. 

Mr. Peabody's general character and appearance 
were as noble as his deeds. He was earnestly, practi- 
cally religious ; it has been said that he formed the 
habit of giving away money m order to reform a dispo- 
sition which was naturally parsimonious, but he told « 
friend that from his earliest manhood he had pra', ed 
earnestly that he might become wealthy so that .he 
might be able to do good, in grateful recognition of 
Heaven's many mercies to Him. He succeeded so well 
that he gave away about eight million dollars ; the 
amount would have been greater had he not died un- 
expectedly, with several million dollars still in hand. 

Yet his only chance in youth had been to become a 
"store-boy" — he himself did all that followed. 



^PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 

Born November 19TH, 183 1 ; Died September 19TH, 

1881. 

From the time he graduated at Williams College to 
the day when he was struck down by an assassin's bul- 
let James A. Garfield was called a '*lucky man," and 
thousands of other able men envied him. 

He became a college professor immediately after 
graduating, and three years later he was a college 
president. He was sent to the Ohio Senate without 
having taken a preliminary training in the lower house. 
In the Civil War, before he had received any military 
training, or even heard a shot fired in anger, he found 
himself in command of the most important military 
position in Kentucky, where he defeated a force twice 
as large as his own, thus saving the state from Confed- 
erate domination. He became chief-of-staff to General 
Rosecrans, a West Point graduate, though trained 
soldiers were available for the position, and he wrote 
every order on the battlefield of Chicamauga except the 
one which caused the disaster to the Union forces. He 
was elected to Congress before he knew he was a candi- 
date. His only legal practice was in the Supreme 
Court and his nomination for the Presidency of the 
United States was a surprise to him as well as to the 
ablest politicians of all parties. 

How did all this happen? ''Luck" does not explain 
it except to men who believe in mere chance, and the 
opinions of men of this class are not worth a second 
thought, for believers in luck are generally the men 

231 



232 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

who have failed, and have selected "bad luck" as their 
most available excuse. 

Garfield v^as born poorer than any other boy who be- 
came president, if the size of the birthplace be accepted 
as a means of comparison, for he first saw the light in 
a log cabin of only one room. He was of good ancestry 
on both sides, but his father had been a common labor- 
er on the Erie canal, when that great ditch was being 
dug from Lake Erie to the Hudson River. When work 
began on the Ohio canal, Mr. Garfield took part in it 
with a half-brother, and soon afterwards he was able 
to purchase fifty acres of Ohio forest land at $2 per 
acre. This land was about fifteen miles from Cleve- 
land, O., and more than two miles from any road, so 
when Mr. Garfield and his brother moved to it, in 1829, 
they had to cut trees and underbrush to make a way 
for their wagon. 

When the younger Garfield was less than two years 
of age his father died suddenly, and the boy's earliest 
recollection was of his father lying stiff and cold under 
a sheet and his mother crying. The outlook of the 
family was discouraging. Part of the little farm was 
still a forest, and the head of the family had been 
obliged to incur some debts. Part of the land had been 
planted, but to gather the crops there was only an 
over-worked woman and Garfield's elder brother, a 
boy of twelve years. To free herself from debt Mrs. 
Garfield sold two-fifths of her land, which left her 
thirty acres ; modern farmers in the far-west (as Ohio 
then was) have a hundred and sixty acres each yet 
complain bitterly of poverty and hard times. 

As to the subject of this sketch, he was merely "an 
encumbrance," or "a responsibility," or"something to be 
lived for;" how a helpless child appears to a poor an<^ 



PREsTdETNT GAftFlELlD. 




James A. Garfield. 



widowed mother depends wholly upon the woman her- 
self. Mrs. Garfield seems to have taken the noblest 
view possible and endeavored to bring up her children 
well. She had reached four-score years when her son 



234 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

become president ; the story of her early struggles had 
been made known throughout the land, so the greatest 
applause of the tens of thousands in front of the Capi- 
tol on Inauguration Day arose when the new President, 
after taking the oath by kissing the Bible, turned aside 
to kiss his mother. 

When Garfield was nominated for the Presidency his 
partisan friends made haste to search the history of his 
youthful days for something with which to fire the 
popular heart. His opponents were quice as eager to 
find something to his discredit; "Everything goes" in 
politics — even a story of some mistake the candidate 
committed while he was still too young to know right 
from wrong. But neither side found anything to its 
purpose, for apparently there had never been a more 
uneventful youth than Garfield's. There were no 
stories about him ; no traditions. The only unusual 
thing that any old acquaintances could remember about 
him was that he had always been truthful ; he had 
neves lied, either directly or by implication.- This in- 
formation, when it was made public, did not help him 
everywhere, for while any man, no matter how bad, of 
any party, would prefer to hear only the truth, most 
men of affairs prefer that the truth should be disguised 
according to business requirements when told, for their 
account, to other men. 

Stripped of the few romances that were woven about 
it for presidential campaign purposes, Garfield's early 
life was as uneventful, and as barren of incidents and 
chances, as that of any other farmer's boy of the period. 
He worked hard, but so did all boys, good and bad, in 
the newer parts of the country, for without hard work 
they would have starved. His home farm was small ; 
thirty acres seemed a mere "garden patch" to men who 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 



235 



thought eighty or one hundred and sixty acres, the 
customary sizes of land warrants in the west, were few 
enough to keep a family from the poorhouse. James 
and his brother worked for other farmers when their 
home estate did not demand their attention. 
There was little to do but farm-work, though the boy 



^ 



^ ":-^: 




Birthplace of Garfield. 

who was to be president earned some money by "boil- 
ing salts" — as dirty a job as he could have found, 
though it was one of the very few ways to get money, 
in distinction from articles of trade. The *'salts," so- 
called, was really potash. The only way to "clear" 
forest land for cultivation was to fell the trees and burn 



236 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

them ; by saving the ashes, packing them tightly in a 
section of hollow log set on end, allowing water to per- 
colate through them and then boiling the water as long 
as anything would evaporate, there remained a mass 
of stuff which resembled earth but was really crude 
potash, and it was in steady demand at a few cents per 
pound. It was absolutely the only commodity for 
which the backwoodsmen, in Garfield's early days, 
could expect to get cash; furs and all products were 
paid for in "trade" by the country merchants. Potash, 
unless handled with the greatest care, caused sore eyes, 
nostrils, lips and hands to the men who extracted it, 
but in the "good old times" of the west a man endured 
almost anything to earn from twenty-five to fifty 
cents a day in cash. Those were the days when 
every one was poor ; — a physician charged only a York 
shilling — twelve and one-half cents, for a professional 
visit, or twice as much when he supplied medicine as 
well as advice ; lawyers were more exacting, yet many 
fees of a single dollar each were accepted. 

Young Garfield, like any other country boy, found 
farming to be liard, unprofitable work, so he longed for 
something better. He worked for wages at anything 
that ofifered. He tried to become a carpenter, but there 
was not much demand for his services. Like boys in 
general, he longed to go to sea ; the ocean was more 
than five hundred miles away, so he tried to begin by 
shipping on a vessel on Lake Erie, but a drunken cap- 
tain discouraged him with a deluge of profanity. He 
made his nearest approach to a sea-faring life when he 
led a tow-horse on the Ohio canal. He might have 
been promoted to steersman of a canal-boat, but when 
the position was oft'ered him he longed to get back to 
his home. The reasons were two-fold and differed 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 



237 



greatly from each other; one was a fondness for read- 
ing, which some men thought a promise of better 
things ; the other was a severe attack of ague. "Ague" 
is a general American name for malarial disorders, and 
its significance varies in gravity with localities. In 
some parts of the far south malaria induces diseases 








'> 



Garfield on the Tow-path. 

closely resembling yellow fever; on newly-cleared, un- 
drained countries farther north it causes functional 
disorders which make men helpless for months and 
even years. 

It was through one of these disorders, which con- 
fined him to his bed for weeks, that young Garfield 
found time to think seriously about his future and to 



238 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

look earnestly for his ''chance," which as yet he had 
not discovered. As already intimated, he was lond of 
reading, but reading and study are as different as 
moonshine and sunlight ; in every village that has a cir- 
culating library there are scores of young people of 
both sexes who absorb all the fiction and much of the 
poetry on the library shelves yet grow mentally weaker 
year by year, but in Garfield 'g town and time it was 
believed that a young person who liked to read was one 
who might become a good student. Young Garfield's 
only study, up to that time, had been in the district 
school, but while he was ill a physician who was also a 
preacher urged him to study. The boy, now in his 
seventeenth year, was convinced of his need for edu- 
cation, but what was he to do? He was too poor to pay 
for special instruction ; to go back to the district school 
would be to swallow an enormous lump of pride, for he 
was as tall and broad as a man, yet so little had he 
been able to attend school that, if now he returned to it, 
he would be obliged to enter classes composed of half- 
grown children. 

While he pondered the subject a new teacher in the 
town became attracted by his character, for truthful 
boys — more's the pity — are as scarce as honest poli- 
ticians. This teacher urged Garfield to determine to 
obtain a college education, and he told him of other 
big, ignorant boys who had made their way to and 
through college. As Garfield was still helpless with 
ague, he had more opportunity for thought than for 
action — one of illness's chances which few men are 
sensible enough to improve. But Garfield improved it, 
and began to study privately, with such assistance as 
the new teacher's advice could give him. He was so 
ignorant that he was obliged to begin with arithmetic 



PRESIDENT GARFIELD. 239 

and grammar, but a more important fact is that he 
began. A boy of seventeen can learn anything lie 
wishes to, if he will begin in earnest to study ; another 
man who became President (Andrew Johnson) did not 
know arithmetic and grammar from algebra and Greek 
until after he had married. 

When it was learned that "Jim" Garfield was trying 
to learn something and to rise superior to his surround- 
ings his neighbors did not encourage him. On the con- 
trary, they thought him foolish and "stuck up," but he 
persisted, and he progressed so rapidly that he aston- 
ished himself and pleased his teacher-friend. Soon he 
found himself fit to enter a seminary a few miles from 
his town ; he had to wear shabby clothes and be 
laughed at for his general appearance, for even in new 
countries there can be found a class, professing to be 
the best, which judges men by appearances only. Gar- 
field could not even afford to "take board," though 
students were boarded and lodged for a dollar a week ; 
he, a cousin and a friend, roomed together, carried 
some food from their homes once a week, and eked out 
these provisions with "mush" — hasty pudding — boiled 
corn meal, ten cents' worth of which would support 
three boys a week. Even then his means were unequal 
to his needs, and he had to retire for a winter to earn 
some money, which he did by teaching in his native 
town. This duty was not entirely intellectual, for 
some of the pupils were as large as the teacher, and 
longed to know which was the better man. Their de- 
sire was gratified, though not entirely to their satisfac- 
tion, for all of them were soundly thrashed by the new 
teacher in some fistic encounters ; the teacher himself 
got some bad bruises, but the school-room became en- 



240 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



tirely orderly and no one remained in doubt as to who 
was "boss." 

In two years he had learned all that the seminary 
could teach him, so he entered an academy of higher 
grade (afterward called Hiram College) but he was 








\ - 



Hiram College, Hiram, Ohio. 

still so poor that he became janitor to earn money with 
which to pay for his books and food. After a year of 
study at Hiram he was made one of the instructors. 
Naturally religious and of a sect which allows any of 
its members to preach, he appeared in a few pulpits, 
and so successfully that his friend3 wished him to 
select the ministry as a permanent profession. But 




Garfield as Rosecrang' Chief-of -Staff. 



241 



242 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

he was determined to complete his education, so when 
twenty-three years of age — older than most college 
students at graduation, he entered Williams College, 
Mass. The standard of admission at Williams was far 
higher than at any we.i:tern college, yet so thoroughly 
had Garfield prepared hin>self that he was admitted to 
the junior, or third-year class, and he graduated after 
two years of study ; meanwhile he won the admiration 
and lasting friendship of the college President — Mark 
Hopkins, who was an intellectual giant and a rare 
judge of human nature. 

How did he do it? Some men said "luck;" others 
"tact;" still others "genius," but President Hopkins 
knew better, and said so in a letter in which he gave 
Garfield credit for mastering his lessons instead of 
merely studying to recite well, for breadth of effort, 
instead of concentration on favorite subjects, and for a 
generally receptive and sympathetic mind. 

He graduated at twenty-five and returned to his 
home with the expectation of becoming a preacher, 
but Hiram College needed and engaged him as pro- 
fessor of Ancient Languages and Literature, and a 
year later he became President of Hiram College — the 
institution of which he had been janitor only three 
years before. In the history of education there is no 
case more startling and suggestive than this incident. 

But Garfield had not ceased to study. He still 
''wanted to know," and continued in this frame of mind 
as long as he lived. At the age of twenty-eight, while 
college president, preacher, general lecturer and law 
student, he was elected a member of the Ohio Senate, 
where he served three years. When the Senate ad- 
journed in 1861, and the college vacation had begun, 
the Civil War was in progress, so Garfield offered his 




213 



244 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

services, without definite position or pay, to the Gover- 
nor of Ohio, and served as a general clerk at the mili- 
tary work of the governor's ottice. The students of his 
college raised a regiment for the Union army, and the 
governor placed Garfield in command. Before the 
young colonel had found time to learn tactics, to sa;/ 
nothing of strategy, he found himself in command of 
a brigade and ordered to advance against a force twice 
as large as his own and commanded by General Hum- 
phrey Marshall, a Kentuckian of high spirit and cour- 
age who had led some Confederates into a portion of 
Eastern Kentucky with which he was entirely familiar. 
Yet Marshall was defeated by Garfield and driven out 
of the state. 

How did it happen, men asked, that a mere civilian — 
a politician, preacher, college-president, had succeeded 
so well? The most plausable explanation is that when 
Garfield began to study he confined himself to one 
subject at a time, and clung to it until he had mastered 
it ; in his campaign against Marshall he thought of 
nothing but ways and means of driving the Confeder- 
ates from Eastern Kentucky. 

For this victory he was appointed a brigadier-gen- 
eral. His services as chief-of-staff to General Rose- 
crans have already been referred to ; for his conduct at 
the battle oi ^^nicamauga he was made a major-general 
■ — the highest rank in the army at that time. He was 
also elected to Congress. He wished to remain in the 
army; the pay of a major-general was more than twice 
as great as that of a Congressman ; in compliance, how- 
ever, with President Lincoln's earnest request he re- 
signed his commission and entered Congress, where he 
quickly became prominent and he remained a member 
until elected President of the United States ; before his 



JAY GOULD. 245 

nomination for the Presidency he was elected a 
Senator from Ohio. While in Congress he began to 
practice law; he was admitted to the bar in 1861, but 
instead of beginning with small cases in local and 
country courts his first appearance as a lawyer was in 
the Supreme Court of the United States ; he never ap- 
peared professionally in any other. 

He was a delegate to the National Republican Con- 
vention of 1880, in which partisans of Grant and Blaine 
struggled against each other until it became necessary 
to compromise on some one who would not be unaccep- 
table to either faction. The choice fell upon Garfield, 
who received a large majority of the electoral votes 
but he had served only three months of his term when 
he was shot by a disappointed office-seeker. Greater 
men may have occupied the Presidential chair, but none 
of them rose from humbler beginnings or had fewer of 
the chances by which poor boys are supposed to rise 
to fame. 



JAY GOULD. 

Born May 27TH, 1836; Died December 2nd, 1892. 

When Commodore Vanderbilt died the unofficial but 
significant title of "Railway King" had already been 
transferred, by common consent to Jay Gould, who 
was Vanderbilt's junior by forty years yet had already 
secured control of more miles of railway than any other 
man in America or the world. He was also the largest 
holder of telegraph and ocean cable stocks, and he con- 

Jg PoQT Boys 



246 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

trolled the great elevated railway system of the city ui 
New York. 

Yet Mr. Gould, like many other great men named in 
this book, was born poor; he was a New York farmer's 
son, and learned at an early age to work hard six days 
in the week. Yet he did not neglect any chances to 
Study ; he worked as hard over books as he had worked 
on the farm and when fourteen years of age he entered 
an academy, earning the cost of tuition and books by 
keeping the accounts of the village blacksmith. He left 
the academy in two years, and was unable to go to col- 
lege, for he was obliged to earn his living; he worked 
hard from that time to the day of his death, yet he ob- 
tained a high general education. The busiest boy or 
man can find time in which to read, but tastes differ; 
so do their resuls. While other boys gave their leisure 
to novels, young Gould read "solid" books and found 
them interesting ; in later years his private library was 
one of the best of its kind in New York, and he was 
said to be well acquainted with the insides of all the 
books in it. 

On leaving school young Gould endeavored to put 
his education to practical use ; he always did the same 
with everything else, no matter how small, with every- 
thing he acquired. His father had exchanged his farm 
for a hardware store in " a small town, and made 
Jay his principal assistant, but the boy continued 
to study, rising at four in the morning and studying 
until breakfast time. Having made good progress 
in mathematics, he studied surveying and in his 
seventeenth year he m.ade a map of Ulster county 
from his own surveys; the work was so Avell 
done that a retired banker wdio was owner of 
the model farm of New York and of the Union endea- 



JAY GOULD. 



247 




Jay Gould. 

vored to persuade the legislature to have a topographic 
survey of the entire state made by young Gould. This 
plan failed, but the boy did not stop work while hoping 
for the job ; he made other county surveys and maps 



24d POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

and wrote a county history, and l)y the time he was 
twenty his work had earned him live thousand dollars. 
He had enjoyed no special chance, as surveyor, map- 
maker, and county historian ; work such as he did is 
still needed in dozens of counties of every state,* and 
thousands of clever boys have opportunities to do it, 
but it takes something more than opportunity to make 
a successful man of a clever boy. 

Before he came of age he was employed to found a 
large tannery in Pennsylvania; he invested his own 
money in the business and got pleasing returns from it, 
but he was intent on finding a larger field for his abili- 
ties, and one in which there was little competition. He 
found it in a short railway line, the stock of which sold 
at only one-tenth of its face value ; he secured control 
of the company and became its president, treasurer and 
general superintendent, making himself expert in all 
the details of railway management, and in a year or two 
was able to sell the property for more than ten times the 
price he had paid for it. Then he took a longer railroad in 
hand, with similar results; years afterward, when he 
had gained control of thousands of miles of railway 
lines his success was attributed by some men to luck, 
by others to trickery, for older capitalists had been 
ruined by speculation in railways. But Gould's phe- 
nomenal success, while operating with very small capi- 
tal, compared wath the millions of some other men in 
the same business, was due in part to the practical 
knowledge of railroading he had obtained, in part to 
his mastery of accounting, gained while he was clerk 
for his father and book-keeper for the village black- 
smith. No ''doctored" balance-sheets, such as had been 
imposed upon prominent capitalists could deceive him. 



JAY GOULD. 



249 



nor could he be tricked by apparent prosperity of roads 
"fixed up to sell." 

New York was the market to which all railway prop- 
erties came, so Gould went to the city and became a 
member of a firm of brokers who dealt largely in the 
stock market. At this time the Erie railway, from New 




Birthplace of Jay Gould. 

York to Bufi(.'alo, was as unprofitable as the New York 
Central had been until Commodore Vanderbilt took it 
in hand. Vanderbilt's success stimulated Gould's am- 
bition, and the young broker formed a combination to 
secure control of the road. He succeeded, but some 
sharp practices, which Gould's friends attributed to the 
other members of the management, caused an immense 



250 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



outcry in the state and also in England, where much 
Erie stock had been sold. Control of the road was 
wrested from the combination, but not before Mr. 
Gould had made millions of dollars through his daring 
attempt. 

Up to this time he had been called a speculator — in- 
deed, the name clung to him as long as he lived, as well 
as some appellations less complimentary, "railway 
wrecker" being one of them, but he was really a shrewd 




Building the Union Pacific Railway. 



investor and the ablest practical railway financier in 
the United States. He got control of many small lines 
and at one time was the leading spirit in the manag- 
ing board of the great Union Pacific railway. When 
he retired from this he secured the Missouri Pacific, 
then a small property, but he gave it his personal at- 
tention, combined other lines with it and gradually he 
increased it to about ten thousand miles of track — the 
largest railway combination at that time, and only 
slightly exceeded at the present day. 









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252 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



While developing railway lines Mr. Gould had been 
obliged to pay much attention to telegraphy — a service 
upon which railways are peculiarly dependent. He 
bought some local lines, constructed others and in time 
organized a formidable combination in opposition to 
the great Western Union Telegraph Company, which 
had previously been able to absorb its would-be rivals. 
By this time Mr. Gould had become known as a deter- 
mined fighter as 
well as an able 
organizer ; the 



Western Union 
Company pre- 
ferred his as- 
sistance to his 
enmity, so they 
made it to his 
advantage t o 
merge his tele- 
graph interests 
in their o w n. 
Many great cor- 
porations d e- 
sired the benefit 
of his quick per- 
ceptions, sound judgment and untiring activity, yet they 
feared him, for it seem fated that he should become the 
controlling influence in whatever he touched. He had a 
provoking way, too, of keeping his plans to himself, in- 
stead of telling them to others. 

A few capitalists became associated with him, but 
even they did not know the extent of his resources ; 
it was generally supposed that he had more nerve than 
money, for his operations in the stock market were so 




First Sight of the Locomotive. 




<253 



254 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



many that at times he was unable to "support" — that is, 
keep up the prices — of what were known as "Gould 
stocks." One day some rich men whom he persuaded 
to take part in a great financial scheme asked him 
plainly for a statement of his' resources. His answer 
was to show them stocks and bonds of the market value 
of fifty million dollars ; he offered to show them mil- 
ions more, but 
they were so as- 
tonished that, as 
one of them said 
afterward, they 
hurried out of 
h i s office to 
catch their 
breath. It was 
soon after this 
that Mr. Gould 
secured control 
of the elevated 
railway system 
of New York, 
which transport- 
ed about a quar- 
ter of a million 
people every 
dav ; then arose 
"railroad wreck- 




Elevated Railway, New York. 



anew the cry of "stock-watering" and 

ing," yet the men who retained their stock in the elevated 

railways have never had cause for regret. 

During the greater part of his business career he was 
the most abused, most hated, most suspected man of 
affairs in the United States. One reason for this was 



JAY GOULD. 255 

his personal modesty and the general privacy of his life. 
He was known to be a model husband and father, but 
he was not a "society man," or a "club-man ;" he never 
was seen at public dinners, fashionable summer re- 
sorts, or other places where men congregated for any- 
thing but business. He vv^as said to have no friends or 
close acquaintances ; the general public did not under- 
stand that sort of man and were ready to believe any- 
thing they might hear to his discredit. At one time 
many professed to believe that he had financial designs 
on the United States, through a prominent candidate 
for the presidency, but he neither denied nor admitted 
the charge. At the time referred to he really wished 
for nothing but rest, but this he could not get ; there 
is such a thing as being too successful in business, and 
getting so close a grip on it to be unable to loosen it. 
Mr. Gould paid the penalty of over-exertion by dying 
in his fifty-seventh year, and an inventory of his estate 
showed that he had left a fortune exceeding seventy 
million dollars. 

What were the chances by which this enormous 
wealth had been acquired? Well, all of them are 
named in this sketch, but they were so small that 
probably the reader has over-looked them, yet they 
made his character while he was still a boy and all that 
followed was the result of his character. 



'* BUFFALO BILL." 
Born February 26th, 1845. 

Some clever boys hope to become missionaries, a 
larger number aspire to the Presidency of the United 
States, but the great majority of the rising generation 
wish wildly that they might be "just like Buffalo Bill." 
They might do far worse, for Bill is a healthy, honest, 
energetic, great-brained, great-hearted man. In recent 
years he has been called a "showman" — an appellation 
which he resents indignantly, for he insists and believes 
that his "Wild West" exhibition is the only means by 
which modern Americans can learn by eyesight 
of the phases of our frontier life which have been oblit- 
erated by the march of civilization. 

Were it here possible to describe fully the earlier 
portion of Buffalo Bill's career, no boy, however 
spirited, would care to become "just like Buffalo Bill," 
lor he would be affrighted by the risks and hardships 
before him. Bill was born in Iowa, but while still very 
young his father moved to Kansas, then a territory, 
and threatened with civil war because of differences 
of opinion on slavery. Many of the early disputes on 
this subject were with rifle, knife and pistol, and Mr. 
Cody, Bill's father, was one of the sufferers on the 
free-state side. He had not been able to give his son 
much education except in the use of horse and rifle, 
but these two branches were the most important in 
the rough school of life in which the bov found himself, 
at the age of twelve, when he lost his father. In- 
deed, before he was half-grown Cody found great 

25$ 



BUFFALO BILL. 257 

practical use for his horsemanship, for on one occasion, 
by a long-, rapid ride, he saved his father's life by giv- 
ing timely warning of an approaching band of lynchers 
belonging to the pro-slavery party. 




William F. Cody.— "Buffalo Bill." 

While his father, who afterwards was a member of 
the Kansas Legislature, was hiding from his enemies 
the Cody family was in need, so Bill, a boy of ten, 



258 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

looked for employment; he found it as a cattle-herder 
or "cow-boy" and at man's wages, for boy though he 
was he could mount any kind of horse and remain in 
the saddle as long as any man. When his father died 
the boy, though he had not yet reached his twelfth 
birthday, became one of a band of men who drove a 
great herd of cattle across the plains to Utah, to feed 
the army which the United States had sent against the 
Mormons. 

Mr. Majors, of the firm which employed him and 
which was the greatest transportation company on the 
plains, did not die until the present year (1900), and he 
never wearied of singing the praises of the young cow- 
boy who in later years served him faithfully in many 
critical situations; "Whatever Majors says is true," as 
thousands of plainsmen have repeated. This great con- 
tractor and millionaire was a living denial of many 
wild fancies about the ways of the plains. At times he 
had thousands of mule-drivers and other teamsters in 
him employ, yet he never would retain a man who 
used profane language or got drunk, nor would he 
allow any of his wagons or herds to move on Sunday. 
From this very able man young Cody learned that one 
could become a successful plainsman without dropping 
into ruffianism. Thousands of other spirited young 
men had the chance of profiting by Majors' rule and 
example, but most of them died discreditably, though 
some are in State Prisons. 

At the age of thirteen Bill was engaged as a wagon- 
master's assistant, for another trip to the army in Utah, 
at fifty dollars per month — not bad wages for a boy. 
Within a year he became a "pony express" rider. The 
so-called "express" was the first fast mail line across 



BUFFALO BILL. 259 

the continent; the company charged from one to five 
dollars for carrying a half-ounce letter from the border 
to the civilized portion of California. A full letter-bag 
weighed but fifteen pounds, and that the horse might 
travel rapidly the riders had to be light. An ordinary 
ride was forty-five miles in three hours, the rider to 
change horses three times. There were no roads or 
ferries, but the route abounded in inquisitive and mur- 
derous Indians, so the rider who valued his life was 
obliged to keep his eyes open, his head clear and his 
heart out of his mouth. Bill succeeded at the work but 
gave it up to quiet the fears of his mother. 

Then he attempted trapping, and at the age of four- 
teen he was succeeding fairly well when he slipped on 
some ice and broke one of his legs. He was more than 
a hundred miles from any settlement; his only com- 
panion "set" the broken limb and then, at Bill's re- 
quest, started on foot to get a wagon with which to 
take the injured boy back to civilization. It was ex- 
pected that the round trip would consume twenty days, 
for the country was rugged and trackless ; meanwhile 
the boy would have to lie in a "dug-way," or hole in the 
ground, roofed with poles, grass and leaves, with only 
his own thoughts for company. It was anything but 
the "Wild West" life which modern boys imagine. 
Food, water and fire-arms had been left with him, but 
on the twelfth day some Indians appeared, ate most of 
the food, took the fire-arms and would have taken the 
boy's life but for a chief whom Bill had known. Then 
a heavy snow storm hid the front of the dug-way, but 
wolves "caught the scent" and tried to break through 
the top. The twenty days passed, and almost ten more, 
before Bill's companion returned ; a few days later 
this faithful friend died of disease induced by his own 



260 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



exposure and privations. This was but one of many 
experiences which would have to be endured by 
the boy who would be like Buffalo Bill, for it was 
through experience — not through great chances, that 
the great plainsman became famous. 




Cody as a "Cow-boy. 



After his month in the dug-way Bill was quite willing 
to remain within the boundaries of civilization, but he 
could not find anything to do, so he returned to the 



BUFFALO BILL. 



261 



pony express business. This time his route was seven- 
ty-five miles long, but "he was a big boy now." Be- 
sides, he fully understood the tools of his trade, which 
were horses. To ride one's own horse — a carefully 
selected animal, is great fun, but to "tackle" several 
different horses in a single day and at the same time 
keep both eyes open for Indians and horsethieves is 
very much like work ; compared with it, sawing wood 
or hoeing corn would appear child's play. One day 
Bill reached the 
end of his route 
and found that 
the man who 
was to have 
taken his mail- 
b a g over the 
next eighty-five 
miles of t h e 
route was drunk 
and helpless ; 
then Bill, with 
the sense of duty 
which has al- 
w a y s d i s- 

tinguished him 
from common 

men — boys, make a note of this ! — rode the drunken man's 
route and returned to go over his own route, thus making 
a horseback trip of more than three hundred miles with- 
out rest. There were no telegraph lines on the plains in 
those days, yet the story of the boy-rider's great exploit 
was soon told wherever plainsmen congregated. 

How did he escape being killed in a service in which 
many men lost their lives? How did a boy succeed 

^J Pour Boys 




A Post-office on the Plains, 



202 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

where many men failed? Merely by keeping his mmd 
on his business, and consequently by knowing good 
chances from bad and acting accordingly. All busi- 
nesses are alike in this respect; as the Bible teaches, 
"the race is not always to the swift nor the battle to the 
strong ;" it is common sense that tells, in the long run. 

AVhen the Civil War began the Indians became 
troublesome on the border and Bill, though only seven- 
teen years of age, found himself in demand as a scout 
and guide, for he had learned much of the language 
and ways and whereabouts of the Indian tribes east of 
the Rocky Mountains. Before the war ended he be- 
came a Union scout in the Confederacy, for the duty 
was quite like that in the Indian country, requiring a 
man of quick perceptions, fertile of expedients, and of 
steadfast courage. 

No sooner did the war end than Bill was again 
wanted as an army scout in the Indian country. 
His first service was w^ith General Custer, who 
ever afterward praised him highly. But he did 
not yearn for hard riding and Inaian-killing; he 
aspired to follow his father's example and assist 
in establishing peaceable, industrious communities. 
One day, soon after he came of age, he thought 
he had found his chance, for an acquaintance 
suggested the starting of a town at a promis- 
ing point on the projected Kansas Pacific Railway. 
They secured the land and in a short time had two 
hundred houses on it, but the railway company had 
plans of its own and in a few weeks a still newer town 
was started near by, the earlier one disappeared, and 
Bill dropped into the position of meat-supplier — in 
plain words, buflfalo-killer, for the railway company's 
men. He did the work uncomplainingly and well. In 



BUFFALO BILL. 



263 



a year and a half he killed more than four thousand 
buffaloes, and the men along the line gave him the 
name by which he has ever since been known — 
"Buffalo Bill." 

But buffalo-killing, except in stories, is but little 
more exciting 
and interest- 
ing than com- 
mon every- 
day butcher- 
ing, so Bill 
looked for 
s o m e t h ing 
better. Young 
though he 
was he had 
acquired a 
reputation as 
a courageous, 
clear-headed, 
tactful man 
who could be 
depended 
upon in emer- 
gencies. Kan- 
sas contained 

some towns in which business and general progress were 
hampered by a restless human element which indulged in 
much lawlessness and violence. The offenders were held in 
as little respect as if they had been rats or rattlesnakes, 
but the law forbade the shooting of human nuisances 
at sight, so it was the custom of each ruffian-infested 
town to appoint a "marshal," who should maintain 




The King of the Herd. 



264 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



order. The city of A1)ilene asked Cody to accept this 
responsible office, but objected to paying his price, 
which was $ioo per month ; a jail delivery and the pros- 




Indian Attack on the Overland MaiL 

pect of a riot caused the authorities to call Cody in 
haste, and at his own terms. He came, asked for the 
immediate enactment of an ordinance against carrying 



BUFFALO BILL. 265 

firearms, and promised that he would do whatever else 
might be necessary. He kept his word, without kill- 
ing any one, though his fist was not inactive ; lie dis- 
armed the ruffianly element and in a few weeks made 
the town so peaceful that his services were no longer 
needed. 

But he did not long remain idle. In 1868 Indians in 
large numbers had become so threatening in western 
Kansas that General Sheridan himself, the department 
commander, hurried to the field to meet them. He 
made Cody his chief of scouts, for reasons best ex- 
plained in the General's own words, quoted from his 
"Autobiography" and describing the most extraordi- 
nary ride ever made by a scout : — 

"Cody had lived from boyhood on the plains and 
passed every experience — herder, hunter, pony-express 
rider, stagedriver, wagonmaster in the quartermaster's 
department, and scout of the army, and was first 
brought to my notice by distinguishing himself in 
bringing me an important dispatch from Fort Larned 
to Fort Hays, a distance of sixty-five miles, through a 
section infested with Indians. The dispatch infornu-.d 
me that the Indians near Larned were preparing to 
decamp, and this intelligence required that certain 
orders should be carried to Fort Dodge, ninety-five 
miles south of Hays. This too being a particularly 
dangerous route — several couriers having been killed 
on it — it was impossible to get one of the various 
Tetes,' 'Jacks,' or 'Jims' hanging around Hays City to 
take my communication. Cody, learning of the strait 
I was in, manfully came to the rescue, and proposed to 
make a trip to Dodge, though he had just finished his 
long and perilous ride from Larned. I gratefull}^ ac- 
cepted his ofiier, and after a short rest he mounted a 



266 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

fresh horse and hastened on his journey, halting but 
once to rest on the way, and then only for an hour, the 
stop being made at Coon Creek, where he got another 
mount from a troop of cavalry. At Dodge he took 
some sleep, and then continued on to his own post — 
Fort Larned — with more dispatches. After resting at 
Lamed he was again in the saddle with tidings for me 
at Fort Hays, General Hazen sending him this time 
with word that the (Indian) villages had fled to the 
south of the Arkansas. Thus, in all, Cody rode about 
three hundred and fifty miles in less than sixty hours, 
and such an exhibition of endurance and courage at 
that time of the year, and in such weather, was more 
than enough to convince me that his services would be 
extremely valuable in the campaign, so I retained him 
at Fort Hays till the battalion of the Fifth Cavalry ar- 
rived, and then made him chief of scouts." 

This is but one of many high commendations Cody 
received from army officers of high rank — Sherman, 
Miles, Merritt, Custer, etc. There were other able 
scouts on the plains, but Cody was something more 
than a mere scout. He was at heart as patriotic and 
self-sacrificing as any soldier; whenever the army 
needed his services, even after he had become a busi- 
ness man with large interests, he promptly and cheer- 
fully dropped everything, at no matter what loss to 
himself, and hurried to the front. 

Some of his exploits had been utilized by dramatists, 
and in time he was induced, by an offer of about one 
hundred dollars a night, to appear on the stage in one 
of the plays. He did not pretend to be an actor, but 
his practical eye could not remain blind to possibilities, 
so he devised a drama in which real Indians and cow- 
boys should appear. From this idea was developed the 



2G^ POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

"Wild West" exhibition, which was begun in 1883 and 
is still the most startling, successful and "truly Ameri- 
can" exhibition ever known, the participators being 
genuine Indians and cowboys, with contingents of 
"rough-riders" from other parts of the world. Buffalo 
Bill accompanies it, but when the exnibition season 
ends he hurries to his ranch in Nebraska or to other 
great landed interests which he has acquired, for he 
is now a capitalist and by preference a town-maker, 
as many years ago he attempted to be, and he would 
far rather win a prize at an agricultural fair than shoot 
an Indian. He fully deserves all the success that has 
rewarded him, but no student of his early career can 
see where he had a chance which almost any other man 
would not have dodged. Not his chances, but himself, 
made him all he was and is. 



"WIZARD" EDISON. 
Born February iith, 1847. 

There are some men of whom the world will believe 
anything marvelous that may be told, and one of them 
is Thomas A. Edison, for he has done more things 
seemingly impossible than any other man in the United 
States. It is well for him that he did not begin his 
career two hundred years ago, for some of his develop- 
ments of telegraphy, his electric light and particularlv 
his phonograph would have caused him to be hanged, 
burned or otherwise killed for witchcraft. 

He was born poor, in a little Ohio town, and his en- 



'WIZARD" EDISON. 




Tiiomas A. Edison. 

tire time of school attendance in his life was two 
months. But his mother had been a teacher, and evi- 
dently a good one, for she knew that schools and text- 



270 POOR BOYS" CHANCES. 

books were not the only means of education. She 
taught her son to read, after which the boy attacked 
whatever books he could find ; among them were New- 
ton's "Principia," Hume's England, Gibbon's Rome, a 
mechanical and scientific dictionary and Burton's 
"Anatomy of the Melancholy," all of which he had read 
and partly digested when he was ten years of age. His 
ability to absorb books has always been enormous, 
probably because he never read anything which did not 
require close attention. Story books have their uses, 
but boys who have been "brought up" on them have a 
dreadful time when they are compelled to fix their 
attention on books from which something can be 
learned. 

But Edison could not spend his youth in reading, for 
at the age of twelve he had to begin to earn his own 
living and assist his mother. He got a place as train- 
boy on a railroad, and sold books, papers, fruit, candy, 
etc., to the passengers. He soon developed a good head 
for business, secured the sole right to sell on the trains 
of one section of the Grand Trunk railway, and hired 
boys to assist him. The Western terminus of his sec- 
tion was Detroit, from which city he obtained his 
newspapers ; after two or three times failing to have 
enough papers when the contents were of special inter- 
est he arranged with one of the railway telegraphers 
to "wire" him when the morning papers contained un- 
usual news ; this foreknowledge enabled him to order, 
by telegraph, according to the probable demand, and 
to further increase his sales.- On such occasions he 
"bulletined" the nature of the news 'at stations at which 
the train would stop on its return trip. 'Twas an easy 
thing to do, after some one had thought of it. but the 
plan had never occurred to any of the hundreds of other 
train-boys in the country. 



'•WIZARD" EDISON. 271 

His own literary stock-in-trade did not seem to meet 
his requirements, though it was good enough for 
travellers, most of whom are supposed to be fairly in- 
telligent, so during his stops at Detroit he spent much 
time in the city's public library. He is said to have 
"read by the shelf," beginning at one end of a row of 
books and reading everything in fifteen linear feet, 
before he accepted the suggestion that it would be well 
to conform his reading to some system and purpose. 

At the age of fifteen he edited, printed and published 
the first paper ever made on a railway train ; his print- 
ing-office was the baggage-car of the train, and he 
issued and sold a weekly paper for several months. He 
might have continued at the business had he not spent 
much time at scientific experimenting in the baggage- 
car. In the course of one of his experiments he spilled 
a lot of phosphorus, the car caught fire and the com- 
pany suppressed the paper and its scientist-editor. 

At sixteen he was taught telegraphy by a grateful 
operator whose child he had rescued from great danger, 
and he soon obtained a position in a railway telegraph 
office. By a blunder he caused a collision which, 
though not serious, impelled him to avoid possible arrest 
by disappearing. The Civil War was now in progress ; 
he made his way to Memphis, Tenn., where at the age 
of seventeen he became a telegraph operator at $125 per 
month. From Memphis he went to Louisville, and 
from there to New Orleans, where he obtained work in 
a far larger and better-equipped office, in which his in- 
ventive and adaptive faculties found much to stimulate 
them. He was the first operator who ever sent a 
message direct from New Orleans to New York, but 
he learned to his sorrow that it is sometimes dangerous 
to know more than one's employers, for he was dis- 
missed for being "too smart." 



272 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

Then he roamed from one city to another, more in- 
tent on seeing everything to be seen in telegraphy than 
on making money, and on one occasion he found him- 
self entirely penniless — he had never saved money, so 
while returning to Louisville, where he had been em- 
ployed, he was obliged to walk a hundred miles of the 
way, which was not a cheering experience for a young 
man twenty-one years of age. He was still an experi- 
menter, and again he lost his position through care- 
lessness with chemicals — this time with sulphuric acid. 

But he had never ceased to think and learn of the 
possibilities of telegraphy. At the age of twenty-four 
he found employment in a great office in New York 
from which Wall Street "quotations" were wired every 
moment to many brokers' offices. One day the quota- 
tions failed to reach the subscribers. The office was 
quickly beseiged ; evidently something was wrong with 
the transmitting machinery. Edison discovered the 
cause, made the necessary repairs, and his salary was 
at once doubled. Soon afterward he became an office 
manager at a high salary, and with ample rneans of 
experimenting. He had already devised some improve- 
ments in telegraphy, but received nothing more sub- 
stantial than thanks ; his first new device in New York 
he patented before displaying it. His employers liked 
it and asked him to name a price for it; while he was 
trying to say that he thought it ought to bring him 
$5,000 he was offered $40,000, which he made haste to 
accept. 

He now thought himself rich, and began to perfect 
some devices which he had long believed practicable. 
One of them was "duplex" telegraphy, or sending two 
messages at a time over a single wire ; he had talked of 
this, in offices in which he had worked, and had been 
called a dreamer and lunatic, but at twenty-seven he 



•WIZARD" EDISON. 



273 



perfected the duplex system, to his great profit ; two 
years later he astonished the telegraphic world with his 




Edison Printing his Paper in a 



quadruplex system, which was adopted immediately. 
By this time Edison had become the most frequent 



274 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

applicant at the Patent office, and his inventions con- 
tinued until he now holds more than four hundred 
patents. 

Finding himself on the road to wealth, he proceeded 
to acquire good business habits — the rarest acquisition 
of an inventor. He became a large manufacturer, not 
only of his own telegraphic devices, but of electrical 
appliances in general. But his inventive faculty still 
remained active; some of his jealous rivals declare that 
he is not an inventor at all — merely an adapter of what 
was already existent and known, but they do not ex- 
plain why they, with the customary human desire for 
money, have not themselves done some of the "adapt- 
ing" by which Edison made his name known through- 
out the civilized world. 

His most noted invention or ''adaptation," was the 
small or "incandescent" electric light. The "arc" light 
had been known for years but it was far too brilliant 
for ordinary indoor use, its glow was not steady, it 
generated much heat and the necessary electricity was 
too great in quantity to be introduced with safety in 
dwelling and business houses. Many electricians 
wished they might provide a small, steady electric light 
for general use, but they seemed to agree that such a 
light would require a division and subdivision of what 
is called the "electric current," and that such division 
and subdivision would be impossible. Therefore when 
Edison announced that he had devised the long-desired 
light there arose from electricians a general expression 
of doubt. As the light was not exhibited promptly 
the doubt increased, and Edison was freely called a 
charlatan and a fit companion for Keely, of ''motor" 
notoriety. The writer of this sketch was one of the 
few men who knew what was being done in Edison's 
laboratory ; he was also of the staflP of a prominent 



"WIZARD" EDISON. 275 

newspaper to which were sent, for publication, many 
letters denouncing Edison and his alleged light as the 
humbugs of the age. Most of these letters were signed 
by scientists of high repute and the editor found much 
amusement in printing them, for with his own eyes 
he had seen scores of the "humbug" lights in successful 
operation in Edison's laboratory, he knew the principles 
on which they were constructed and operated and all 




Edison's Incandescent Light- 
was so simple that the only cause for wonder was that 
the plan had not been thought out long before. 

Yet publicity for the lights themselves was delayed 
for months and even years, for Edison had reached 
the point beyond which inventors generally fail ; that 
is, he had demonstrated the correctness of a theory, 
but there were perplexing hindrances to its practical 



276 POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 

and commercial success. Most boys should be able to 
understand the following short explanation — Edison's 
plan was to create a series of lights, along a "circuit" 
of wire, by transmitting a low current ot electricity 
which should be retarded, or "resisted," at each lamp 
by a wire, film, or other conductor so slight, in com- 
parison with the main conducting wire, as to become 
hot and glow. That it should not burn, it was enclosed 
in a glass bulb from which the air had been extracted, 
for nothing can burn in a vacuum. But of what should 
the resisting film be? Carbon threads and films were 
tried, but as it is impossible to extract every particle 
of air from any receptacle, they were soon destroyed ; 
besides, they broke easily, so the life of a lamp was only 
a few hours long-. The world was ransacked for the 
necessary material, and experiments were made with 
scores of different fibres and metals ; the longest suc- 
cessful exhibition was made with carbonized shreds of 
the outer portion of East Indian bamboo, which con- 
tained much silex and therefore was durable in com- 
parison with other materials that had been tried. Plati- 
num answered the purpose admirably, but it cost more 
than its weight in gold, while the lamps, if they were 
to be largely used, would have to be cheap ; besides, 
the world's supply of platinum was unequal to the 
possible demand if this metal were to be selected. How- 
ever, very fine platinum wire was finally adopted and a 
brilliant, enduring "lamp" was the result ; the Edison 
light was so successful and satisfactory that a great 
silence fell upon all the electricians who had been ex- 
posing Edison's ''humbug," and soon thousands of the 
lights were in use in all American and European cities. 
But to the unscientific mind, as well as to the wisest, 
the wonders of duplex and quadruplex telegraphy and 
the incandescent light were as nothing when compared 



"WIZAPD" EDISON. 



277 



with the mystery of the phonograph — the instrument 
which receives and repeats the sounds of the human 
voice. While he was a manufacturer Edison made 
many telephones and experimented much to increase 
the efficiency of telephone service. In the course of 
one of his experiments he learned by accident that 
sound-vibrations might be permanently recorded so 
that they could be repeated, He was quite as amazed 




Edison's First Phonograph. 



as any one who afterward spoke into a phonograph 
and then heard his own words vibrated back to him 
from a surface of metal or wax. The writer of these 
lines was present at an exhibition of the first phono- 
graph ; most of the listeners were highly intelligent 
men, but one of them muttered " 'Tis impossible ; Satan 
is in the thing," and others seemed to agree with him. 

1 g Pour Boye 



278 



POOR BOYS' CHANCES. 



To this day, though phonographs have been on exhibi- 
tion for twenty years, any person who hears one for 
the first time seems to believe there is something super- 
natural in it. 

But Edison's inventive instinct remained tireless. 
Among his many devices was one by which the popu- 
lar "moving pictures" are produced, the method being 
to take and display photographic pictures in such rapid 
succession that the eye cannot detect the intervals ; the 
effect is therefore that of continuous action. 




Moving Picture Elxhibitiou. 



His most important invention of recent date is a sys- 
tem of extracting iron from its ore by means of elec- 
tricity. Confidence in his ability has become so general 
that the world is prepared to believe anything it may 
hear about his discoveries ; a few years ago a clever 
writer printed an imaginary story of Edison extract- 



"WIZARD" EDISON. 279 

ing food material direct from the earth and thus mak- 
ing mankind independent of the natural but slow pro- 
cess by which vegetables, grains and meats are 
created, and hundreds of thousands of readers accepted 
the fiction as truth, to the great annoyance of Edison, 
though he admitted that such a discovery might yet 
be possible. 

Yet a review of Edison's life does not indicate that 
any great and good chances appeared to him. His best' 
and only great opportunity was that of using a clear, 
inquiring mind, which he did not weaken by excesses, 
indulgences or indolences. Unlike many other boys 
naturally clever, he did not lemoan the lack of early 
advantages and dream of what he might have done had 
he been able to ''get an education." He made good his 
deficiencies by reading for a purpose, instead of for 
amusement, and he learned, as any other boy might 
have learned, that his kind of reading was quite as easy 
as the other. 



2S0 POOR BOYS' CHANCE?^ 

CONCLUSION. 

Dear boys, the conclusion of the whole matter is 
that success in life does not depend on a man's chances, 
but on the man himself. Chances offer themselves 
daily to millions of men, but are lost through mental 
blindness or carelessness. A chance in life is not like 
a lottery prize or a bag of money found in the street; 
it is something that must be taken in hand, thought 
about, worked over and developed by individual effort, 
patience, energy, couragfe, and, above all, common 
sense. 

All the great men named in this book were born 
poor, and most of them in discouraging circumstances ; 
all had some defects of mental, moral, or physical 
nature. Their chances were few and small compared 
with the millions which now await the boy who will 
strive to make an able tool of his own mind, no matter 
how common and unpromising his present work may 
be, and be open-eyed and alert for whatever may 
present itself, yet at the same time heroically patient 
and careful, remembering that no one of whom I have 
written achieved any of his successes without much 
preparation, thought and work. All of my heroes, 
found their chances where they had least expected 
them, but even then it was not the chance, but the 
man, that achieved the success.^ for the man had al- 
ready fitted himself to make the most of whatever 
chance presented itself. 

"Go thou and do likewise." 

FINIS. 



ALTEIVtUS' 



Young People's Library, 



Price, 50 Cents Each. 



ROBINSON CRUSOE : His Life and Strange Surprising 
Adventures. With 70 beautiful illustrations by Walter 
Paget. Arranged for yo.ung readers. 

"There exists no work, either of instruction or entertainment, 
which has been more generally read, and universally admired." 
— IValtei- Scott. 

ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND. With 42 
illustrations by John Tenniel. 

" This is Carroll's immortal story." — Atheninim. 
"The most delightful of children's stories. Elegant and deli- 
cious nonsense." — Saturday Review. 

THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS AND WHAT 
ALICE FOUND THERE. (A companion to Alice in 
Wonderland.) With 50 illustrations by John Tenniel. 

" Not a whit inferior to its predecessor in grand extravagance of 
imagination, and delicious allegorical nonsense." — Quarterly 
Review, 

BUNYAN'S PILGRIM'S PROGRESS. With 50 full-page 
and text illustrations. 

Pilgrim's Procuress is the most popular story book in the 
world. With the exception of the Bible it has been translated into 
more languages than any other book ever printed. 

A CHILD'S STORY OF THE BIBLE. With 72 full-page 
illustrations. 

Tells in simple language and in a form fitted for the hands of 

the younger members of the Christian flock, the tale of God's 

dealings wiih his Chostn People under the Old Dispensation, 

^ with its foreshadowings of the coming of that Messiah who was 

t^ to make all mankind one fold under one Shepherd. 



ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



A CHILD'S LIFE OF CHRIST. With 49 illustrations. 

God has implanted in the infant's heart a desire to hear of Jesus, 
and children are early attracted and sweetly riveted by the won- 
derful Story of the Master from the Manger to the Throne. 

In this little book we have brought together from Scripture every 
incident, expression and description within the verge of their com- 
prehension, in the effort to weave them into a memorial garland of 
their Saviour. 

THE FABLES OF ^.SOP. Compiled from the best ac- 
cepted sources. With 62 illustrations. 

The fables of yEsop are among the very earliest compositions of 
this kind, and probably have never been surpassed for point and 
brevity, as well as for the practical good sense they display. In 
their grotesque grace, in their quaint humor, in their trust in the 
simpler virtues, in their insight into the cruder vices, in their inno- 
cence of the fact of sex, ^Esop's Fables are as little children— and 
for that reason will ever find a home in the heaven of little chil- 
dren's souls. 

THE SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON, or the Adventures of 
a Shipwrecked Family on an Uninhabited Island. With 
50 illustrations. 

A remarkable tale of adventure that will interest the boys and 
girls. The father of the family tells the tale and the vicissitudes 
through which he and his wife and children pass, the wonderful 
discoveries they make, and the dangers they encounter. It is a 
standard work of adventure that has the favor of all who have 
read it. 

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY 
OF AMERICA. With 70 illustrations. 

It is the duty of every American lad to know the story of Chris- 
topher Columbus. In this book is depicted the story of his life 
and struggles ; of his persistent solicitations at the courts ot Eu- 
rope, and his contemptuous receptions by the learned Geographical 
Councils, until his final employment by Queen Isabella. Records 
the day-by-day journeyings while he was pursuing his aim and his 
perilous way over the shoreless ocean, until he "gave to Spain 8 
New World." Shows his progress through Spain on the occasion 
of his first return, when he was received with rapturous demon- 
strations and more than regal homage, Hi« displacement by the 



ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



Odjeas, Ovandos and Bobadilas ; his last return in chains, and the 
story of his death in poverty and neglect. 

THE STORY OF EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY 
IN AFRICA. With 80 illustrations. 

Records the adventures, privations, sufferings, trials, dangers 
and discoveries in developing the "Dark Continent," from the 
early days of Bruce and Mungo Park down to Livingstone and 
Stanley and the heroes of our own times. 

The reader becomes carried away by Conflicting emotions of 
wonder and sympathy, and feels compelled to pursue the story, 
which he cannot lay down. No present can be more acceptable 
than such a volume as this, where courage, intrepidity, resource 
and devotion are so pleasantly mingled. It is very fully illustra- 
ted with pictures worthy of the book. 

GULLIVER'S TRAVELS INTO SOME REMOTE RE- 
GIONS OF THE WORLD. With 50 illustrations. 

In description, even of the most common-place things, his power 
is often perfectly marvellous. Macau'ay says of SwiFT: " Under 
a plain garb and ungainly deportment were concealed some of the 
choicest gifts that ever have been bestovved on any of the children 
of men — rare powers of observation, brilliant art, grotesque inven- 
tion, humor of the most austere flavor, yet exquisitely delicious, 
eloquence singularly pure, manly and perspicuous." 

MOTHER GOOSE'S RHYMES, JINGLES AND FAIRY 
TALES. With 300 illustrations. 

** In this edition an excellent choice has been made from the 
standard fiction of the little ones. The abundant pictures are well- 
drawn and graceful, the effect frequently striking and always deco- 
rative." — Critic, 

'*Only to see the book is to wish to give it to every child one 
knows. ' ' — Qtieen. 

LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED 
STATES. Compiled from authoritative sources. With 
portraits of the Presidents ; and also of the unsuccessful 
candidates for the office ; as well as the ablest of the 
Cabinet officers. 

This book should be in every home and school library. It tells, 
ia an impartial way, the story of the political history of the United 
States, from the first Constitutional convention to the last I^eii* 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



dential nominations, it is just the book for intelligent boys, and it 
will help to make them intelligent and patriotic citizens. 

THE STORY OF ADVENTURE IN THE FROZEN 
SEA. With 70 illustrations. Compiled from authorized 
sources. 

We here have brought together the records of the attempts to 
reach the North Pole. Our object being to recall the stories of the 
early voyagers, and to narrate the recent efforts of gallant adven- 
turers of various nationalities to cross the " unknown and inacces- 
ible " threshold ; and to show how much can be accomplished by 
indomitable pluck and steady perseverance. Portraits and numer- 
ous illustrations help the narration. 

ILLUSTRATED NATURAL HISTORY. By the Rev. 
J. 'G. Wood. With 80 illustrations. 

Wood's Natural History needs no commendation. Its author 
has done more than any other writer to popularize the study. His 
work is known and admired overall the civilized world. The sales 
of his works in England and America have been enormous. The 
illustrations in this edition are entirely new, striking and life-like. 

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND. By Charles 
Dickens. With 50 illustrations. 

Dickens grew tired of listening to his children memorizing the 
old fashioned twaddle that went under the name of English his- 
tory. He thereupon wrote a book, in his own peculiarly happy 
style, primarily for the educational advantage of his own children, 
but was prevailed upon to publish the work, and make its use gen- 
eral. Its success was instantaneous and abiding. 

BLACK BEAUTY; The Autobiography of a Horse. By 
Anna Sewell. With 50 illustrations. 

This NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION is sure to command attention. 
Wherever children are, whether boys or girls, there this Autobiog- 
raphy should be It inculcates habits of kindness to all members 
of the animal creation. The literary merit of the book is excellent. 

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS' ENTERTAINMENTS. With 
50 illustrations. Contains the most favorably known of 
the stories. 

The text is somewhat abridged and edited for the young. It 
forms an excellent introduction to those immortal tales which have 
helped so long to keep the weary world young. 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



ANDERSEN'S FAIRY TALES. By Hans Christian An- 
dersen. With 77 illustrations. 

The spirit of high moral teaching, and the delicacy of sentiment, 
feeling and expression that pervade these tales make these won- 
derful creations not only attractive to the young, but equally accept- 
able to those of mature years, who are able to understand their 
real significance and appreciate the depth of their meaning. 

GRIMM'S FAIRY TALES. With 50 illustrations. 

These tales of the Brothers Grimm have carried their names into 
every household of the civilized world. 

The Tales are a wonderful collection, as interesting, from a lit- 
erary point of view, as they are delightful as stories. 

GRANDFATHER'S CHAIR; A History for Youth. By 
Nathaniel Hawthorne. With 60 illustrations. 

The story of America from the landing of the Puritans to the 
acknozvkdgment zvithoiit reserve of the Independence of the 
United States, told with all the elegance, simplicity, grace, clear- 
ness and force for which Hawthorne is conspicuously noted. 

FLOWER FABLES. By Louisa May Alcott. With colored 
and plain illustrations. 

A series of very interesting fairy tales by the most charming of 
American story-tellers. 

AUNT MARTHA'S CORNER CUPBOARD. By Mary 
and Elizabeth Kirby. With 60 illustrations. 

Stories about Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Rice and Chinaware, and 
other accessories of the well-kept Cupboard. A book full of in- 
terest for all the girls and many of the boys. 

WATER-BABIES; A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby. By 
Charles Kingsley. With 94 illustrations. 

" Come read me my riddle, each good little man ; 
If you cannot read it, no grown-up folk can." 

BATTLES OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. By 
Prescott Holmes. With 70 illustrations. 

A graphic and full history of the Rebellion of the American Col- 
onies from the yoke and oppression of England, with .the causes 



ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



that led thereto, and including an account of the second war with 
Great Britain, and the War with Mexico. 

BATTLES OF THE WAR FOR THE UNION. By 
Prescott Holmes. With 80 illustrations. 

A correct and impartial account of the greatest civil war in the 
annals of history. Both of these histories of American wars are 
a necessary part of the education of all intelligent American boys 
and girls. 

YOUNG PEOPLE'S HISTORY OF TTHE WAR WITH 
SPAIN. By Prescott Holmes. With 89 illustrations. 

This history of our war with Spain, in 1898, presents in a plain, 
easy style the splendid achievements of our army and navy, and 
the prominent figures that came into the public view during that 
period. Its glowing descriptions, wealth of anecdote, accuracy < f 
statement and profusion of illustration make it a most desirable 
gift book for young readers. 

HEROES OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. By 
Hartwell James. With 65 illustrations. 

The story of our navy is one of the most brilliant pages in the 
world's history. The sketches and exploits contained in this vol- 
ume cover our entire naval history from the days of the honest, 
rough sailors of Revolutionary times, with their cutlasses and 
boarding pikes, to the brief war of 1898, when our superbly ap- 
pointed warships destroyed Spain's proud cruisers by the merci- 
less accuracy of their fire. 

MILITARY HEROES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
By Hartwell James. With 97 illustrations. 

In this volume the brave lives and heroic deeds c f our military 
heroes, from Paul Revere to Lawton, are told in the most captiva- 
ting manner. » The material for the work has been gathered from 
the North and the South alike. The volume presents all the im- 
portant facts in a manner enabling the young people of our united 
and prosperous land to easily become familiar with the command- 
ing figures that have arisen in our military history. 

UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; or Life Among the Lowly. By 
Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. With 90 iTustrations. 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 7 

The unfailing interest in the famous old story suggested the need 
of an edition specially prepared for young readers, and elaborately 
illustrated. This edition completely fills that want. 

SEA KINGS AND NAVAL HEROES. By Hartwell 
James. With 50 illustrations. 

The most famous sea battles of the world, with sketches of the 
lives, enterprises and achievements of men who have become fam- 
ous in naval history. They are stories of brave lives in times of 
trial and danger, charmingly told for young people. 

POOR BOYS' CHANCES. By John Habberton. With 
50 illustrations. 

There is a fascination about the writings of the author of 
" Helen's Babies," from which none can escape. In this charm- 
ing volume, Mr. Habberton tells the boys of America how they 
can attain the highest positions in the land, without the struggles 
and privations endured by poor boys who rose to eminence and 
fame in former times, 

ROMULUS, the Founder of Rome. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 49 illustrations. 

In a plain and connected narrative, the author tells the stories 
of the founder of Rome and his great ancestor, yEneas. These 
are of necessity somewhat legendary in character, but are pre- 
sented precisely as they have come down to us from ancient times. 
They are prefaced by an account of the life and inventions of Cad- 
mus, the *' Father of the Alphabet," as he is often called. 

CYRUS THE GREAT, the Founder of the Persian Empire. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 40 illustrations. 

For nineteen hundred years, the story of the founder of the an- 
cient Persian empire has been read by every generation of man- 
kind. The story of the life and actions of Cyrus, as told by the 
author, presents vivid pictures of the magnificence of a monarchy 
that rose about five hundred years before the Christian era, and 
rolled on in undisturbed magnitude and glory for many centuries. 

ADVENTURES IN TOYLAND. By Edith King Hull. 
With 70 illustrations by Alice B. Woodward. 

The sayings and doings of the dwellers in toyland, related by 
one of them to a dear little girl. It is a delightful book for chil- 
dren, and adn^irably illustrated. 



8 ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

DARIUS THE GREAT, King of the Medes and Persians. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 34 illustrations. 

No great exploits marked the career of this monarch, who was 
at one time the absolute sovereign of nearly one-half of the world. 
He reached his high position by a stratagem, and left behind him 
no strong impressions of personal character, yet, the history of his 
life and reign should be read along with those of Cyrus, Caesar, 
Hannibal and Alexander. 

XERXES THE GREAT, King of Persia. By Jacob Ab- 
bott. With 39 illustrations. 

For ages the name of Xerxes has been associated in the minds 
of men with the idea of the highest attainable human magnificence 
and grandeur. He was the sovereign of the ancient Persian em- 
pire at the height of its prosperity and power. The invasion of 
Greece by the Persian hordes, the battle of Thermopylae, the burn- 
ing of Athens, and the defeat of the Persian galleys at Salamis are 
chapters of thrilling interest. 

THE ADVENTURES OF A BROWNIE. By Miss 
Mulock, author of John Halifax, Gentleman, etc. With 
18 illustrations. 

One of the best of Miss Murlock's charming stories for children. 
All the situations are amusing and are sure to please youthful 
readers. 

ALEXANDER THE GREAT, King of Macedon. By 
Jacob Abbott. With 51 illustrations. 

Born heir to the throne of Macedon, a country on the confines 
of Europe and Asia, Alexander crowded into a brief career of 
twelve years a brilliant series of exploits. The readers of to-day 
will find pleasure and profit in the history of Alexander the Great, 
a potentate before whom ambassadors and princes from nearly all 
the nations of the earth bowed in humility. 

PYRRHUS, King of Epirus. By Jacob Abbott. With 45 
illustrations. 

The story of Pyrrhus is one of the ancient narratives which has 
been told and retold for many centuries in the literature, eloquence 
and poetry of all civilized nations. While possessed of extraordi- 
nary ability as a military leader, Pyrrhus actually accomplished 
nothing, but did mischief on a gigantic scale. He was naturally 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 



of a noble and generous spirit, but only succeded in perpetrating 
crimes against the peace and welfare of mankind. 

HANNIBAL, the Carthaginian. By Jacob Abbott. With 
37 illustrations. 

Hannibal's distinction as a warrior was gained during the des- 
perate contests between Rome and Carthage, known as the Punic 
wars. Entering the scene when his country was engaged in peace- 
ful traffic with the various countries of the known world, he turned 
its energies into military aggression, conquest and war, becoming 
himself one of the greatest military heroes the world has ever 
known. 

MIXED PICKLES. By Mrs. E. M. Field. With 31 illus- 
trations by T. Pym. 

A remarkably entertaining story for young people. The reader 
is introduced to a charming Httle girl whose mishaps while trying 
to do good are very appropriately termed " Mixed Pickles." 

JULIUS C^SAR, the Roman Conqueror. By Jacob Ab- 
bott. With 44 illustrations. 

The life and actions of Julius Caesar embrace a period in Roman 
history beginning with the civil wars of Marius and Sylla and end- 
ing with the tragic death of Coesar Imperator. The work is an 
accurate historical account of the life and times of one of the great 
military figures in history, in fact, it is history itself, and as such is 
especially commended to the readers of the present generation. 

ALFRED THE GREAT, of England. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 40 illustrations. 

In a certain sense, Alfred appears in history as the founder of 
the British monarchy : his predecessors having governed more like 
savage chieftains than English kings. The work has a special 
value for young readers, for the character of Alfred was that of an 
honest, conscientious and far-seeing statesman. The romantic 
story of Godwin furnishes the concluding chapter of t'ne volume. 

WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 43 illustrations. 

The life and times of William of Normandy have always been a 
fruitful theme for the historian. War and pillage and conquest 
were at least a part of the everyday business of men in both Eng- 



lO ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

land and France : and the story of William as told by the author 
of this volume makes some of the most fascinating pages in his- 
tory. It is especially delightful to young readsars. 

HERNANDO CORTEZ, the Conqueror of Mexico. By 
Jacob Abbott. With 30 illustrations. 

In this volume the author gives vivid pictures of the wild and 
adventurous career of Cortez and his companions in the conquest 
of Mexico. Many good motives were united with those of ques- 
tionable character, in the prosecution of his enterprise, but in 
those days it was a matter of national ambition to enlarge the 
boundaries of nations and to extend tbeir commerce at any cost. 
The career of Cortez is one of absorbing interest. 

THE LITTLE LAME PRINCE. By Miss Mulock. With 
24 illustrations. 

The author styles it "A Parable for Old and Young." It is in her 
happiest vein and delightfully interesting, especially to youthful 
readers. 

MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS. By Jacob Abbott. With 
45 illustrations. 

The story of Mary Stuart holds a prominent place in the present 
series of historical narrations. It has had many tellings, for the 
melancholy story of the unfortunate queen has always held a high 
place in the estimation of successive generations of readers. Her 
story is full of romance and pathos, and the reader is carried along 
by conflicting emotions of wonder and sympathy. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH, of England. By Jacob Abbott. 
With 49 illustrations. 

In strong contrast to the story of Mary, Queen of Scots, is that 
of Elizabeth, Queen of England. They were cousins, yet im- 
placalile foes. Elizabeth's reign was in many ways a glorious one, 
and her successes gained her the applause of the world. The 
stirring tales of Drake, Hawkins and other famous mariners of 
her lime have been incorporated into the story of Elizabeth's life 
and reign. 

KING CHARLES THE FIRST, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 41 illustrations. 

The well-known flgures in die stormy reign of Charles I. are 
brought forward in this narrative of his life and times. It is his- 
tory told io the most fascinating manner, and embraces the early 



ALTEMUS' YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. II 

life of Charles ; the court of James I.; struggles between Charles 
and the Parliament ; the Civil war ; the trial and execution of the 
king. The narrative is impartial and holds the attention of the 
reader. 

KING CHARLES THE SECOND, of England. By Jacob 
Abbott. With 38 illustrations. 

Beginning with his infancy, the life of the " Merry Monarch " 
is related in the author's inimitable style. His reign was signal- 
ized by many disastrous events, besides those that related to his 
personal troubles and embarrassments. There were unfortunate 
wars ; naval defeats ; dangerous and disgraceful plots and con- 
spiracies. Trobule sat very lightly on the shoulders of Charles IL, 
however, and the cares of state were easily forgotten in the society 
of his court and dogs. 

THE SLEEPY KING. By Aubrey Hopwood and Seymour 
Hicks. With 77 illustrations by Maud Trelawney. 

A cbarmingly-told Fairy Tale, full of delight and entertain- 
ment. The illustrations are original and strikmg, adding greatly 
to the interest of the text. 

MARIA ANTOINETTE, Queen of France. By John S. C. 
Abbott. With 42 illustrations. 

The tragedy of Maria Antoinette is one of the most mournful in 
the history of the world. " Her beauty dazzled the whole king- 
dom," says Lamartine. Her lofty and unbendins; spirit under 
unspeakable indignities and atrocities, enlists and holds the sympa- 
thies of the readers of to-day, as it has done in the past. 

MADAME ROLAND, A Heroine of the French Revolution. 
By Jacob Abbott. With 42 illustrations. 

The French Revolution developed few, if any characters more 
worthy of notice than that of Madame Roland. The absence of 
playmates, in her youth, inspired her with an insatiate thirst for 
knowledge, and books became her constant companions in every 
unoccupied hour. She fell a martyr to the tyrants of the French 
Revolution, but left behind her a car'^er full of instruction that 
never fails to impress itself up^^r ^he reader. 

JOSEPHINE, Empress of France. By Jacob Abbott. With 
40 illustrations. 



12 ALTEMUS* YOUNG PEOPLE'S LIBRARY. 

Maria Antoinette beheld the dawn of the French Revoluiion ; 
Madame Roland perished under the lurid glare of its high noon ; 
Josephine saw it fade into darkness. She has been called the 
*' Star of Napoleon ; " and it is certain that she added luster to 
his brilliance, and that her peisuasive influence was often exerted 
to win a friend or disarm an adversary. The lives of the Empress 
Josephine, of Maria Antoinette, and of Madame Roland are 
especially commended to young lady readers. 

TALES FROM SHAKESPEARE. By Charles and Mary 
Lamb. With 80 illustrations. 

The text is somewhat abridged and edited for young people, but 
a clear and definite outline of each play is presented. Such episodes 
or incidental sketches of character as are not absolutely necessary 
to the development of the tales are omitted, while the many moral 
lessons that lie in Shakespeare's plays and make them valuable in 
the training of the young are retained. The book is winning, help- 
ful and an effectual guide to the "inner shrine" of the great 
dramatist. 

MAKERS OF AMERICA. By Hartwell James. With 75 
illustrations. 

This ^olume contains attractive and suggestive sketches of the 
lives and deeds of men who illustrated some special phase in the 
political, religious or social life of our country, from its settlement 
to the close of the eighteenth century. It affords an opportunity 
for young readers to become easily familiar with these characters 
and their historical relations to the building of our Republic. An 
account of the discovery of America prefaces the work. 

A WONDER BOOK FOR BOYS AND GIRLS. By 

Nathaniel Hawthorne. With 50 illustrations. 

In this volume the genius of Hawthorne has shaped anew 
wonder tales that have been hallowed by an antiquity of two or 
three thousand years. Seeming " never to have been made" they 
are legitimate subjects for every age to clothe with its own fancy 
as to manners and sentiment, and its own views of morality. The 
volume has a charm for old and young alike, for the author has 
not thought it necessary to "write downward" in order to meet 
the comprehension of children. • 

w 56 




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